'Science and technology, while changing the world for the better, also opens up Pandora's Box. Discuss this view with reference to medical science.
Medical science is now instrumental to securing a good quality of life in this contemporary age, with the prevalent trends of mutation of viruses increasing numbers of people falling prey to diseases. The standards of medical care and treatment have also improved tremendously, with the advent of sophisticated techniques like cloning and neuroscience and the availability of robots and vaccines and drugs. However, its rapid development has raised concerns that Pandora's Box might be opened as ethical concerns might be blatantly disregarded in mankind's relentless pursuit for new cures. Nonetheless, on the whole, most branches of medical science bring about substantial benefits, which have made the world a better place.
- One way medical science has made the world a better place is through cloning, which helps to alleviate the problem of organ shortage.
- Currently, there is a worldwide shortage of organs for clinical transplantation. Ten patients die each day in the United States while on the waiting list to receive lifesaving vital organ transplants. In Singapore, there are about 600 people waiting for a kidney, with an average waiting time of nine years.
- The organ shortage is so severe that whole villages in developing nations have become victims of organ trafficking as poor villagers sell their organs as a means to get out of poverty.
- Organ trading is universally regarded as immorally incorrect as it exploits these poor and disadvantaged villagers.
- As a pig is deemed genetically close to a human being, numerous patients have received pig heart valves since 1975, when the procedure first became commercially available.
- In 2007, Japanese researchers created a fourth-generation cloned pig in a world-first achievement that could lead to new transplant treatments for humans. There is huge potential in the organs and cells of cloned pigs to be transplanted to humans to treat various diseases
- Such advances in cloning could greatly reduce the pressure on the need for organ trading, thereby ensuring that people do not abuse organ transplants.
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In addition, the advent of the use of robots has enhanced the quality of medical care. • Robotic surgery- the use of mechanical arms or surgical instruments inserted through keyhole incisions in the patient's abdomen-helps reduce tremors caused by human fatigue on the doctors' part, thereby ensuring the success of operations. • Robotic surgery has gained popularity in Singapore in the past five years. More than 200 robotic surgeries have already been performed since the introduction of a $2.1 million robotic surgical system, known as the Da Vinci Surgical System, at the Singapore General Hospital in 2003. • Applied biomorphic robots such as the Honda ASIMO, which act more like humans, can assist the elderly or people confined to beds and wheelchairs. BBesides improving the effectiveness of medical treatment, robots have bolstered the emotional welfare of patients.
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Medical research has also led to the development of vaccines and drugs, which could detect, prevent and cure diseases. Vaccination programmes have been known to prevent early deaths in developing African nations. An instance includes The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) Alliance, which was launched in 2000 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos and has prevented more than 2.3 million early deaths up to 2006.
- Retroviral drugs have helped to control the development of full-blown AIDS. This has helped to improve the quality of life of HIV sufferers, empowering them to retain normality in their lives.
- Scientists from the Singapore-based Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have recently developed a test kit to detect the HSN1 Avian flu virus. This ensures that any outbreak of the disease can be checked since the detection is now done in a convenient and affordable way. The availability of vaccines and drugs has helped to preserve lives.
- Moreover, advancement in neuroscience has enhanced the understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
- Since the invention of the MRI (functional magnetic-resonance imaging) in 1990, it has been possible for scientists to finally watch brain activity in action.
- Researchers who recently injected Alzheimer's symptoms in rats have discovered that the rats injected with a particular sticky protein developed the disease while other rats injected with different forms of the protein did not succumb likewise. This will greatly help scientists to investigate why one form has such a damaging effect and advance the research in this field.
- In 2007, an operation known as deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been found effective to greatly reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The patient who underwent the operation can recognise his parents and conduct brief conversations. Neuroscience has helped to preserve humans’ memory and consciousness, helping them to hold on to a sense of identity.
- However, the development of chimeras gives rise to various ethical issues, which must be treaded with care.
- Chimeras are made up of genetic material from two creatures and can be combinations of animals, humans or both.
- Although scientists hope that lab-created human-animal combinations can be vessels for human organs, or provide living test beds for potential drug treatments for diseases such as cancer, various authorities expressed reservations about advancing chimera research. In 2004, Canada criminalised chimera research.
- This is because scientists have begun putting human embryonic stem cells into the brains of monkeys as well. Scientists are apprehensive that the human embryonic stem cells inserted into the brain of a monkey could theoretically migrate elsewhere and cause it to have human sperm. If such a monkey starts breeding, will the offspring be a humanised monkey with human consciousness? Even if not, the result may well be a monkey that potentially has more human cognitive abilities than ever before. • Therefore the fear is that chimeras may transcend being merely part-human and could logically become persons at some point. As inter-species experimentation is carried out in various countries, this suggests that chimera research is advancing at a faster rate than societal resolution regarding these issues.
- Moreover, genetic testing could lead to people manipulating the desired traits they want in their babies. • The advancement in genetic engineering has enabled the application of ‘screening tests’, which look for changes in genes that scientists now know are linked to particular disorders. • People can now choose to have genetic tests that will show if they are at an unusually high risk of suffering from different types of disease, such as specific types of cancer or certain brain disorders. These tests can even be applied on babies soon after birth and might even show doctors which drugs are likely to help, and which could cause harmful side effects. • This has led to the possibility of designer babies, in which parents can literally customise their children to their liking by identifying the genes responsible for desired traits and altering the embryo at the initial stages of development. • This fosters the notion that only a “perfect baby” is worthy of life, thereby perpetuating unattainable standards of perfection. The sacredness of life is compromised when people dictate the kind of life that is deemed as “worthy”.
Conclusion
All in all, the application of cloning and neuroscience and the use of robots, vaccines and drugs have enhanced the quality of preventive care and improved the standards of medical treatment and options available to patients. Although the development in chimera research and genetic testing has given rise to ethical issues, society is unlikely to spiral out of control if governments and authorities take the lead in thinking through and regulating such issues. Therefore, when such discretionary measures are put into place, medical science will fulfil its promise of making the world a better place.