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Ethical Dilemma: Therac-25 case, Should the programmer have released the…
Ethical Dilemma: Therac-25 case, Should the programmer have released the software as is, knowing there would be errors, or should they have told the project manager about it and tried to solve the errors before putting out the software
Stakeholders
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Relevant facts
Therac-25 relied more heavily on the machines software for control and safety than previous versions did
The Therac-20 did have failures but they were not reported because the safeguards in place prevented incidents. Hardware safeguards were omitted in the Therc-25, since the original software had a "perfect" safety record
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Doctors ignored first reports of incidents as they believed the machine could not cause radiation burns, high trust in software
Three people died from radiation overdoses due to software errors and six patients were seriously harmed by accidents involving the Therac- 25
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The details of the accidents were never reported to the AECL or the FDA since the physicians in charge did not agree that an accident had occured
Our decision is to hold off on releasing the software in order to resolve it's errors. This will protect the hospital from reputation loss and lawsuits as well as ensure that patients receive safe treatment.
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