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It saddens me that modern medical researchers seem to fall into one of two categories: those who will happily make ten thousand people shit out their lungs in
by causality0 7y ago
It saddens me that modern medical researchers seem to fall into one of two categories: those who will happily make ten thousand people shit out their lungs in exchange for some seasonal allergy relief, and those who would rather let ten thousand people die in hospital beds than risk a trial that may not produce results.
In my opinion we desperately need to embrace the middle ground. The "move fast and break things, so long as you have very well-informed consent" approach. I have a lot of friends who would happily get an experimental needle in the brain, because it's a lot better than having to fight not to put a shotgun in their mouth.
- ColanR 7y agoWhy should we assume the consent will be well-informed? If what you ask for was accomplished tomorrow, then in 15 years you'd be back on this site lamenting how patients were misled by their doctors into treatments that had horrifying results, and that we need better regulation of what experimental treatments doctors are allowed to administer. Maybe there'd be an anecdote about a desperate low-income family with no other options. And, by the way, we already have systems in place for experimental treatments. There's a reason why it's hard to get in, and why it's hard for doctors to be allowed to administer the treatments: because doctors (and the megacorporations funding the research) aren't always moral. Sometimes they "will happily make ten thousand people shit out their lungs in exchange for some seasonal allergy relief" and sometimes they "would rather let ten thousand people die in hospital beds than risk a trial that may not produce results". The "move fast and break things, so long as you have very well-informed consent" approach is a great way to take advantage of desperate people.