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Ethical Dilemma of the Company of Therac 25: Should the company go through…
Ethical Dilemma of the Company of Therac 25: Should the company go through backing an unsafe machine, or should they listen and address the reports of harm and possible risks.
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Facts
A Kennestone medical physicist had asked if serious radiations burns inflicted from radiation overdoses on patients was possible, but AECL deemed this was 'impossible'. Either the company was not aware of the error from the software programmer, or they were intentionally lying to possibly keep the incidents under wraps.
The sole software programmer and the company quality assurance officer bear significant moral responsibility.
Therac 25 is a real time software using inputs from the real world to determine how the treatment should be performed, altered, or changed
Physicians did not even agree whether accidents had occurred or not so no reports were made. The exact amount of failures from Therac 25 are not known.
The program was made by one person and not tested. The company and programmer should have been aware of possibilities of errors and either hired more help or tested extensively.
The software of Therac 20 was used in Therac 25. It was believed to be error free but wasn't. This was never noticed because the hardware safeguards never failed.
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