5 ms·

When you cross the line into experimenting with medical treatments, you're not gambling with other people's money, you're gambling with lives. You can't just eq

by jakarta 17y ago

When you cross the line into experimenting with medical treatments, you're not gambling with other people's money, you're gambling with lives. You can't just equate it to any other kind of start up, it has to be held to a higher standard.

lkrubner 17y ago
Regarding medical innovation. Other fields also threaten people's lives. If you build a new kind of jet engine, which gets through testing but which then is responsible for a spectacular crash, then your product has killed a few hundred people. And yet, unless there was fraud in the documentation of the tests, there have not been criminal cases in the past. I worry that in the future there will be criminal cases. Again, the trend that I worry about is that what used to have been treated as a civil matter will, in the future, be treated as a criminal matter. We do not need to focus on the medical field. Many other fields can cause people to die - industrial automation, the transport and disposal of toxic chemicals, the construction of buildings (which could then fail and kill people). All industries are in need of innovation all of the time, yet innovation brings with it risk, including the risk of death. How much innovation will we get if we make these matters criminal? I should emphasize, just in case people forget, that fraud has always been criminal. It has been criminal for centuries. So the move to criminalize more aspects of business is not a move to make fraud criminal. If you think that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act made fraud criminal, then you are mistaken. Fraud has always been criminal. Sarbanes-Oxley is representative of the new trend. The overall goal was to encourage greater accuracy in the reporting of a company's financial health. This goal could have been reached through a variety of methods, including both the carrot (rewards) and the stick (punishments). Rewards could have included tax breaks for meeting some additional level of compliance. Punishments could have included fines levied against companies that failed to meet a higher level of compliance. These approaches would not have raised the risk of jail time for CEO's. Instead, Sarbanes-Oxley decided to go with the heaviest kind of punishment of all - to treat infractions as criminal offenses, potentially meriting jail time. This punitive attitude is going to have a chilling effect on the amount of innovation we can expect in any field.
- kiba 17y ago
  The punitive attitude is going that way because there is no incentive or disincentive to care about innovations in any given market. Politicans care far more about abortion and other popular issue because it give them the vote. It doesn't even matter if their policy isn't good, they will parrot it in lieu of popular opinions. Clearly, the republic do not have any if much features that keep bad policies away and tending toward good policies. Unfortunately, it is also very painful to remove a republic or any monopolistic governemnt and start a new type of governing system. It could even have disasterous consequences if the new governing system is seriously flawed. The market for governing is only 200ish suppliers versus 6 billions human beings. Clearly, we also going to need a better system that generate these "governing entities" so that we can speed up innovation in social paradigms that regulate human socities.
- pyre 17y ago
  The problem can be that punitive matters are handled as a 'cost of doing business.' Who cares if we kill a few people with our products if our profit will be more than the costs of any punitive settlements/fines? The problem really comes in when there is willful negligence or malice in the process. If an engineer comes to you (as a manager) and tells you the your product will fail in certain circumstances and cost lives. Then you say, "I'll take that 'under advisement'," and completely ignore it because to take that into account would cause the project to run over deadlines and you want to look good to your bosses. Then the product is deployed in the field it fails under those same circumstances. Lives are lost. Lawsuits are filed. The 'company' loses and/or settles with the grieving families and pays out some money. But the real cause of those deaths is your willful neglect just to please some corporate masters in the hope of a promotion. I personally think that you should be held legally responsible in such a case. But the prevalence of 'not me syndrome'... aka Diffusion of Responsibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility). Once a sufficiently large group of people start to function as an entity, that entity can do things that no normal person would be allowed to do... and no one is held responsible.
  - kiba 17y ago
    Killing a few people will be more than just punitive settlements/fine, it will also lower overall revenues in the long term because consumers now have reasons to fear a certain company's product. That, and your competitors will hawk their wares and point out that their product never killed anybody, in addition to big suspicions from consumer magazines.
lkrubner 17y ago
jakarta, I'd also ask you to consider what your words imply. You suggest that medical innovations need to be "held to a higher standard". Does jail time actually constitute a higher standard? In the US, the FDA has a long and complicated process through which most medical innovations need to go before becoming approved. Would it make sense to to have an entrepreneur go through that process, win approval, and then face jail time if something goes wrong? And, I'll repeat, outright fraud is not under discussion here, as fraud has always been illegal. I think your reasoning could be reversed - medical treatments are special because they save people's lives, therefore the entrepreneurs in this field should be given special consideration. Are we, as a society, willing to tolerate the failures so as to get the big breakthroughs? I offer this hypothetical as a thought experiment: 1.) Many lives might be saved by a reliable treatment for cancer. 2.) The threat of jail time will slow innovation in the medical field. 3.) Therefore the threat of jail time is causing people to die.
- pyre 17y ago
  I offer a counter-'thought experiment': 1.) Gun manufacturers make guns 2.) Guns kill people 3.) Therefore gun manufacturers are causing people to die. 1.) Managers impose deadlines and put pressure on employees to meet them 2.) Employees do sub-standard work to meet deadlines 3.) Sub-standard components cause deaths 4.) Therefore managers cause deaths
  - kiba 17y ago
    Surely, you realize the method of murder will be accomplished by stabbing in place of a gun? There are many dangerous implement in the kitchen, for example. I would argue that people kill people, rather than guns.
  - lkrubner 17y ago
    pyre, why do you suggest that managers cause deaths? The #4 in your second thought experiment doesn't make any sense. It would make more sense to write: 1.) Managers impose deadlines and put pressure on employees to meet them 2.) Employees do sub-standard work to meet deadlines 3.) Sub-standard components cause deaths 4.) Therefore employees doing sub-standard work kill people That would be an argument to jail all the workers at companies whose products do harm. Or you could write: 1.) Companies exist to make profits 2.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners 3.) Cutting corners sometimes leads to death 4.) Therefore, the profit motive causes deaths That would be an argument to get rid of the profit motive, but it wouldn't be an argument to increase punishments over whatever base line of punishments already exist. Or how about: 1.) The law holds corporate executives responsible for the financial performance of their companies. 2.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners. 3.) Cutting corners leads to situations where people die. 4.) Therefore the law is causing people's deaths. That would be an argument for punishing those who create the laws, rather than those who obey them. Or what if we take this logic to its extreme? 1.) The people of a democracy elect representatives to create laws. 2.) The law holds corporate executives responsible for the financial performance of their companies. 3.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners. 4.) Cutting corners leads to situations where people die. 5.) Therefore the people who elected the representatives who created the laws are causing people's deaths. In this last scenario, all of the people in the nation deserve to be punished.

by jakarta 17y ago

lkrubner 17y ago

Regarding medical innovation. Other fields also threaten people's lives. If you build a new kind of jet engine, which gets through testing but which then is responsible for a spectacular crash, then your product has killed a few hundred people. And yet, unless there was fraud in the documentation of the tests, there have not been criminal cases in the past. I worry that in the future there will be criminal cases. Again, the trend that I worry about is that what used to have been treated as a civil matter will, in the future, be treated as a criminal matter. We do not need to focus on the medical field. Many other fields can cause people to die - industrial automation, the transport and disposal of toxic chemicals, the construction of buildings (which could then fail and kill people). All industries are in need of innovation all of the time, yet innovation brings with it risk, including the risk of death. How much innovation will we get if we make these matters criminal? I should emphasize, just in case people forget, that fraud has always been criminal. It has been criminal for centuries. So the move to criminalize more aspects of business is not a move to make fraud criminal. If you think that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act made fraud criminal, then you are mistaken. Fraud has always been criminal. Sarbanes-Oxley is representative of the new trend. The overall goal was to encourage greater accuracy in the reporting of a company's financial health. This goal could have been reached through a variety of methods, including both the carrot (rewards) and the stick (punishments). Rewards could have included tax breaks for meeting some additional level of compliance. Punishments could have included fines levied against companies that failed to meet a higher level of compliance. These approaches would not have raised the risk of jail time for CEO's. Instead, Sarbanes-Oxley decided to go with the heaviest kind of punishment of all - to treat infractions as criminal offenses, potentially meriting jail time. This punitive attitude is going to have a chilling effect on the amount of innovation we can expect in any field.

kiba 17y ago
The punitive attitude is going that way because there is no incentive or disincentive to care about innovations in any given market. Politicans care far more about abortion and other popular issue because it give them the vote. It doesn't even matter if their policy isn't good, they will parrot it in lieu of popular opinions. Clearly, the republic do not have any if much features that keep bad policies away and tending toward good policies. Unfortunately, it is also very painful to remove a republic or any monopolistic governemnt and start a new type of governing system. It could even have disasterous consequences if the new governing system is seriously flawed. The market for governing is only 200ish suppliers versus 6 billions human beings. Clearly, we also going to need a better system that generate these "governing entities" so that we can speed up innovation in social paradigms that regulate human socities.
pyre 17y ago
The problem can be that punitive matters are handled as a 'cost of doing business.' Who cares if we kill a few people with our products if our profit will be more than the costs of any punitive settlements/fines? The problem really comes in when there is willful negligence or malice in the process. If an engineer comes to you (as a manager) and tells you the your product will fail in certain circumstances and cost lives. Then you say, "I'll take that 'under advisement'," and completely ignore it because to take that into account would cause the project to run over deadlines and you want to look good to your bosses. Then the product is deployed in the field it fails under those same circumstances. Lives are lost. Lawsuits are filed. The 'company' loses and/or settles with the grieving families and pays out some money. But the real cause of those deaths is your willful neglect just to please some corporate masters in the hope of a promotion. I personally think that you should be held legally responsible in such a case. But the prevalence of 'not me syndrome'... aka Diffusion of Responsibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility). Once a sufficiently large group of people start to function as an entity, that entity can do things that no normal person would be allowed to do... and no one is held responsible.
- kiba 17y ago
  Killing a few people will be more than just punitive settlements/fine, it will also lower overall revenues in the long term because consumers now have reasons to fear a certain company's product. That, and your competitors will hawk their wares and point out that their product never killed anybody, in addition to big suspicions from consumer magazines.

lkrubner 17y ago

jakarta, I'd also ask you to consider what your words imply. You suggest that medical innovations need to be "held to a higher standard". Does jail time actually constitute a higher standard? In the US, the FDA has a long and complicated process through which most medical innovations need to go before becoming approved. Would it make sense to to have an entrepreneur go through that process, win approval, and then face jail time if something goes wrong? And, I'll repeat, outright fraud is not under discussion here, as fraud has always been illegal. I think your reasoning could be reversed - medical treatments are special because they save people's lives, therefore the entrepreneurs in this field should be given special consideration. Are we, as a society, willing to tolerate the failures so as to get the big breakthroughs? I offer this hypothetical as a thought experiment: 1.) Many lives might be saved by a reliable treatment for cancer. 2.) The threat of jail time will slow innovation in the medical field. 3.) Therefore the threat of jail time is causing people to die.

pyre 17y ago
I offer a counter-'thought experiment': 1.) Gun manufacturers make guns 2.) Guns kill people 3.) Therefore gun manufacturers are causing people to die. 1.) Managers impose deadlines and put pressure on employees to meet them 2.) Employees do sub-standard work to meet deadlines 3.) Sub-standard components cause deaths 4.) Therefore managers cause deaths
- kiba 17y ago
  Surely, you realize the method of murder will be accomplished by stabbing in place of a gun? There are many dangerous implement in the kitchen, for example. I would argue that people kill people, rather than guns.
- lkrubner 17y ago
  pyre, why do you suggest that managers cause deaths? The #4 in your second thought experiment doesn't make any sense. It would make more sense to write: 1.) Managers impose deadlines and put pressure on employees to meet them 2.) Employees do sub-standard work to meet deadlines 3.) Sub-standard components cause deaths 4.) Therefore employees doing sub-standard work kill people That would be an argument to jail all the workers at companies whose products do harm. Or you could write: 1.) Companies exist to make profits 2.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners 3.) Cutting corners sometimes leads to death 4.) Therefore, the profit motive causes deaths That would be an argument to get rid of the profit motive, but it wouldn't be an argument to increase punishments over whatever base line of punishments already exist. Or how about: 1.) The law holds corporate executives responsible for the financial performance of their companies. 2.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners. 3.) Cutting corners leads to situations where people die. 4.) Therefore the law is causing people's deaths. That would be an argument for punishing those who create the laws, rather than those who obey them. Or what if we take this logic to its extreme? 1.) The people of a democracy elect representatives to create laws. 2.) The law holds corporate executives responsible for the financial performance of their companies. 3.) The profit motive encourages some companies to cut corners. 4.) Cutting corners leads to situations where people die. 5.) Therefore the people who elected the representatives who created the laws are causing people's deaths. In this last scenario, all of the people in the nation deserve to be punished.