4 ms·

> His early fears of having damaged Kennedy for life turned out to be unfounded; the language loss that left his patient briefly locked in was just a symptom of

by gzer0 5y ago

> His early fears of having damaged Kennedy for life turned out to be unfounded; the language loss that left his patient briefly locked in was just a symptom of postoperative brain swelling. While I am glad that there was minimal harm done here, I am perplexed as to why a Neurosurgeon would risk their decades of training and career for such a high-risk low reward surgery. This could have been a terrible ending. We should be weary about tampering with things we do not completely comprehend.

oaktrout 5y ago
I have a feeling the surgeon did the surgery because he was in Belize, you can probably get away with more there.
- fundamental 5y ago
  This was almost certainly the case. It was extremely abnormal that the surgery happened at all.
Nextgrid 5y ago
On the other hand, if someone wants to experiment on themselves, why not let them? Nobody is harmed if it doesn't work, and we can make quick breakthroughs that might be otherwise impossible due to ethics/etc.
- bawolff 5y ago
  I think its like drugs in sports - in principle you are only risking yourself, but if it becomes normalized you will have to do it no matter how you feel about it or risk getting left behind.
  - 3np 5y ago
    Science is (supposed to be) a collaborative effort, not a zero-sum competitive game like sports. Of course people might get competitive about their careers and feel pressured to stay on top. But the discovery of one researcher should not be to the detriment of others.
    - fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
      Not quite. You’re right that scientific knowledge and career prestige are not zero-sum competitive games, but the competition for scientific funding often is. Anyone who’s sat down to write a grant proposal knows what a struggle it can be to get support for even the most promising research. If (big if, but it is the topic of the discussion at hand) self-experimentation is increasingly normalized, and through normalization attracts funding, one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support. Money, the same motivation that pushes athletes to extremes, is not something scientists are immune to, even if the ultimate utility of the money serves different purposes.
      - DSMan195276 5y ago
        > one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support. Yep, I think the realities of allowing such a thing are quite clear: You can't skip the rats and go straight to a human, but you could skip the rats and go straight to yourself. Having human data at an early stage would be a huge advantage for getting funding, and there would only be one way to get it.
- alach11 5y ago
  Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe. And people might consider risking their health if they feel it could make/break their career. Better to have a strong stigma against self-experimentation to avoid that.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe." That's not the reason. Athletes do unsafe things all the time, with the blessing of their sport. Boxing is unsafe, American football is unsafe, skateboarding is unsafe, skiing is unsafe, extreme sports are unsafe, etc... The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another. Such considerations are irrelevant when one's goal is not fair competition but advancement of science.
    - DSMan195276 5y ago
      > The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another. This is somewhat circular logic - it's only 'unfair' because you've defined it that way. IMO the idea that there is a level playing field is somewhat of a myth to begin with, there are plenty of other ways to gain "fair" advantage like better training and nutrition, and access to those things is clearly not equal across all competitors. I think you could probably argue the current situation is less fair than just allowing them considering how many top athletes likely use steroids anyway and just haven't been caught. That's not to say that I think we should allow steroids in sports, just that "a level playing field" doesn't seem like much of a justification to me. I think the simpler reason is that lots of sports already have rules to make the sport safer for their athletes, and banning steroids/drugs simply falls into that same category because it has a clear risk of spiraling out of control. Yes, sports are unsafe, but they're also generally designed to not be so unsafe that competitors are dying all the time due to going to extreme lengths to try and win.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Not all steroids are inherently unsafe, especially the more modern ones. In reality the primary argument against steroids is that "its unfair to those who don't"
fundamental 5y ago
As someone who intersected with some of this work, my opinion is that it was likely a consequence of dwindling funding.
pmoriarty 5y ago
Self-experimentation used to be a lot more common in medicine. There's an interesting history of it in a book called Who Goes First? https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/0520212819 https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...
- HWR_14 5y ago
  One of the two winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine from 2005 (Barry Marshall) gave himself ulcers just to prove he understood causation and the cure. He and his partner (Robin Warren) in the research won the prize for that treatment.
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    I was told a story about a neuroscience study that involved paralyzing the lead author with curare and manually manipulating his eyeball to study his perception as a result of the manipulation; I was told it was never repeated, although a quick Google to find a reference revealed at least one similar study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/), so I guess it's more popular than it used to be. Another famous one was Werner Forssmann, the first doctor to perform a cardiac catheterization, who performed the operation on himself first (then walked over to the X-ray room to get a picture to prove he succeeded).
- DantesKite 5y ago
  Thanks for the book recommendation. That one looks very interesting.
prometheus76 5y ago
"Wary" means "cautious", as in "beware". "Weary" means "tired".
fouc 5y ago
He was 66-year old at the time of doing this. He wrote a scifi novel that was an expression of his dream and his drive to make it a reality. He was fully prepared for a terrible ending. He weighed the risks and rewards, and thought it would be worth it. And it was.

by gzer0 5y ago

oaktrout 5y ago

I have a feeling the surgeon did the surgery because he was in Belize, you can probably get away with more there.

fundamental 5y ago
This was almost certainly the case. It was extremely abnormal that the surgery happened at all.

Nextgrid 5y ago

On the other hand, if someone wants to experiment on themselves, why not let them? Nobody is harmed if it doesn't work, and we can make quick breakthroughs that might be otherwise impossible due to ethics/etc.

bawolff 5y ago
I think its like drugs in sports - in principle you are only risking yourself, but if it becomes normalized you will have to do it no matter how you feel about it or risk getting left behind.
- 3np 5y ago
  Science is (supposed to be) a collaborative effort, not a zero-sum competitive game like sports. Of course people might get competitive about their careers and feel pressured to stay on top. But the discovery of one researcher should not be to the detriment of others.
  - fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
    Not quite. You’re right that scientific knowledge and career prestige are not zero-sum competitive games, but the competition for scientific funding often is. Anyone who’s sat down to write a grant proposal knows what a struggle it can be to get support for even the most promising research. If (big if, but it is the topic of the discussion at hand) self-experimentation is increasingly normalized, and through normalization attracts funding, one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support. Money, the same motivation that pushes athletes to extremes, is not something scientists are immune to, even if the ultimate utility of the money serves different purposes.
    - DSMan195276 5y ago
      > one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support. Yep, I think the realities of allowing such a thing are quite clear: You can't skip the rats and go straight to a human, but you could skip the rats and go straight to yourself. Having human data at an early stage would be a huge advantage for getting funding, and there would only be one way to get it.
alach11 5y ago
Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe. And people might consider risking their health if they feel it could make/break their career. Better to have a strong stigma against self-experimentation to avoid that.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe." That's not the reason. Athletes do unsafe things all the time, with the blessing of their sport. Boxing is unsafe, American football is unsafe, skateboarding is unsafe, skiing is unsafe, extreme sports are unsafe, etc... The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another. Such considerations are irrelevant when one's goal is not fair competition but advancement of science.
  - DSMan195276 5y ago
    > The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another. This is somewhat circular logic - it's only 'unfair' because you've defined it that way. IMO the idea that there is a level playing field is somewhat of a myth to begin with, there are plenty of other ways to gain "fair" advantage like better training and nutrition, and access to those things is clearly not equal across all competitors. I think you could probably argue the current situation is less fair than just allowing them considering how many top athletes likely use steroids anyway and just haven't been caught. That's not to say that I think we should allow steroids in sports, just that "a level playing field" doesn't seem like much of a justification to me. I think the simpler reason is that lots of sports already have rules to make the sport safer for their athletes, and banning steroids/drugs simply falls into that same category because it has a clear risk of spiraling out of control. Yes, sports are unsafe, but they're also generally designed to not be so unsafe that competitors are dying all the time due to going to extreme lengths to try and win.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Not all steroids are inherently unsafe, especially the more modern ones. In reality the primary argument against steroids is that "its unfair to those who don't"

fundamental 5y ago

As someone who intersected with some of this work, my opinion is that it was likely a consequence of dwindling funding.

pmoriarty 5y ago

Self-experimentation used to be a lot more common in medicine. There's an interesting history of it in a book called Who Goes First? https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/0520212819 https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

HWR_14 5y ago
One of the two winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine from 2005 (Barry Marshall) gave himself ulcers just to prove he understood causation and the cure. He and his partner (Robin Warren) in the research won the prize for that treatment.
- saalweachter 5y ago
  I was told a story about a neuroscience study that involved paralyzing the lead author with curare and manually manipulating his eyeball to study his perception as a result of the manipulation; I was told it was never repeated, although a quick Google to find a reference revealed at least one similar study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/), so I guess it's more popular than it used to be. Another famous one was Werner Forssmann, the first doctor to perform a cardiac catheterization, who performed the operation on himself first (then walked over to the X-ray room to get a picture to prove he succeeded).
DantesKite 5y ago
Thanks for the book recommendation. That one looks very interesting.

prometheus76 5y ago

"Wary" means "cautious", as in "beware". "Weary" means "tired".

fouc 5y ago

He was 66-year old at the time of doing this. He wrote a scifi novel that was an expression of his dream and his drive to make it a reality. He was fully prepared for a terrible ending. He weighed the risks and rewards, and thought it would be worth it. And it was.