INTRODUCTION TO BIOETHICS
Definition
What is ethics???
Morality
right or wrong/good or bad
determine what a person should do
standard of conduct
for himself as well as for the
society and environment
and provides reasons why
general standards of conduct in a society
Ethics
standards of conduct in a particular professional or
institutional branches
bioethics (ethics in biosciences)
other professional ethics
regardless of their
professional or institutional roles
e.g. “don’t lie, cheat, steal,
harm other people, etc.”
Graduates of the program
expand knowledge, be creative and innovative in contributions to the field of biomedical engineering
perform in an ethical and professional manner
- solving problems in a
quantitative and systematic fashion - based on biomedical engineering knowledge and multidisciplinary perspectives
to minimize the risk when introduce
to guide decisions in complex and difficult morel dilemmas
Will not make an unethical decision, avoid getting fined, losing license, imprisoned.
Bioethics = Bioscience + Ethics
Bioethics
balance different benefits and risk to living organism
examples
study of ethical issues and decision-making related to living in bioscience
medical/clinical ethics
human/animal research ethics
food ethics
agricultural and environmental ethics
Core bioethical considerations
minimizing harms while maximizing
fairness
respect for persons
not treating some one as a means to an end or goal
ex: kidnapping, extort, blackmail,...
not interfering with a person's ability to make and carry out decision
volunteering to use new products: contact lenses, artificial bone,...
balancing harms (or burdens) and benefits
"utilitarianism" (central to the ethical approach)
"first of all, do no harm" or "do good"
distributive justice
social justice
Please note that fairness does not necessarily entail equal shares; it usually depends on other factors, too.
If in these case, ethic on in ethics ???
Other issues
plagiarism, corruption, misconduct, intellectual property (IP), privacy, confidentiality, conflict of interest
Common issues
the use and clinical trials of drugs and vaccines/testing of medical devices, abortion, death right, human cloning, stem cells, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization (IVF)
Dicussion
HENRIETTA LACKS
Person have benefited
Intentions of doctor/scientist
Scientist ethical
Unethical but there will be different perspectives in this case
Initially, they only took cancer cells for research, but after she died, they learned that they are immortal.
The doctor who discovered Hela cells did not take credit for his work and did not apply for a license of invention.
Scientific research
Next patient's generation and medicine's scientist. HeLa is used to test a wide variety of diseases and methods. From chemotherapy to plastic surgery, and from vaccines to Viagra. The biggest application of HeLa is in the production of vaccines to treat Polio disease.