Outstanding article. As a Christian, I have always been horrified that many of the people conducting those studies and performing those procedures also called themselves Christians. Once you let someone lead you down the “let us do evil that good may come” you have departed moral and ethical behavior and are failing as a Christian and human.
Flexner is, like so many, a complex character with pluses and minuses. Of course I saw the AMA and AAMC comments on Flexner; their accusations on race and gender were probably overblown, while they were overly supportive of aspects of his legacy that deserve criticism. I’ve seen your writings on the topic, as well—well done, though I don’t agree with all of it. And yes, research today is problematic in many, many ways. While Flexner’s desire to impose scientific rigor on medicine ws admirable and valuable, it has also led to monopolistic choke points in education, residency, licensure, and practice — and that is enabling many of the pathologies that I suspect you and I agree about. Let’s have a chat sometime.
Hi, Injecting cancerous cells into noncancerous patients to see whether they develop cancer is a problem. That caused quite a stir in the 1960s — as well it should have.
I can understand finding/using the Lacks family members' medical histories without their knowledge is an ethical violation, but how is research using cells taken in a biopsy a problem?
1.) Abraham Flexner did not promote a medical system that valued public health over the individual. His main concern was the establishment of science-based medical education which was, at that time was greatly concern with the horrific diseases that were the big killers of that day: typhoid, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, etc. He focused on providing the country with medical schools attached to public universities whose students could do medical research and become well-trained physicians who attended to the "personal well-being of each citizen."
Yes, public health came to be a branch of medicine in this era. Most people still don't understand that the proper mission of public health is to provide vital health services that would be very difficult or impossible for the individual to provide himself, such as fluoridation, food safety, and vaccination.
2.) The AMA and AAMC "resurrected the...Flexner vision" of public health primacy?
Perhaps you haven't notice that both of these organizations denounced Abraham Flexner in 2020 as a "racist and sexist" and unfairly blamed him for the closure of Black and women medical schools. Flexner was all about rigor and excellence in science-base medical education; that is being lost today.
3.) Unethical research today? The country is silly with it. Research abuses subjects in a variety of ways: no fully informed consent, misuse of the subjects' resources, and withholding effective treatment. Deceptive pharmacological research doesn't test a new drugs against older drugs but only against a placebo. Therefore, it is unknown if the new drug is more or less effective.
Alternative medicine research (often funded by government) has wasted billions in resources on highly implausible hypotheses, with poorly designed protocols. The human subjects are rarely given fully informed consent in these studies. In one experiment, American researchers went to the Dominican Republic to test if "massage" (possibly "Therapeutic Touch") was a beneficial treatment for children diagnosed with HIV; treatments known to be effective were withheld from the children.
One area that is ridiculously evil is Commie China’s organ harvesting, transplantation program. Analysis shows they have to be getting HLA markers/typing on their prisoners. Now, you are some rich Saudi sheik. Your doc sends them your labs and they search their “inventory”. If they have someone then YOU TELL THEM when you want it. They will make sure guy is dead, organ harvested and sitting on the back table all dissected down checked for viability and ready to plug and play synchronously by the time your surgical team has you anesthetized and your kidney ischemic.
Individualism is so often (sophomorically) perceived as selfishness—— but it is ironically the seminal element that protects the collective
Excellent history lesson and warning about hubris in medicine and ethics.
Outstanding article. As a Christian, I have always been horrified that many of the people conducting those studies and performing those procedures also called themselves Christians. Once you let someone lead you down the “let us do evil that good may come” you have departed moral and ethical behavior and are failing as a Christian and human.
Flexner is, like so many, a complex character with pluses and minuses. Of course I saw the AMA and AAMC comments on Flexner; their accusations on race and gender were probably overblown, while they were overly supportive of aspects of his legacy that deserve criticism. I’ve seen your writings on the topic, as well—well done, though I don’t agree with all of it. And yes, research today is problematic in many, many ways. While Flexner’s desire to impose scientific rigor on medicine ws admirable and valuable, it has also led to monopolistic choke points in education, residency, licensure, and practice — and that is enabling many of the pathologies that I suspect you and I agree about. Let’s have a chat sometime.
Hi, Injecting cancerous cells into noncancerous patients to see whether they develop cancer is a problem. That caused quite a stir in the 1960s — as well it should have.
I can understand finding/using the Lacks family members' medical histories without their knowledge is an ethical violation, but how is research using cells taken in a biopsy a problem?
1.) Abraham Flexner did not promote a medical system that valued public health over the individual. His main concern was the establishment of science-based medical education which was, at that time was greatly concern with the horrific diseases that were the big killers of that day: typhoid, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, etc. He focused on providing the country with medical schools attached to public universities whose students could do medical research and become well-trained physicians who attended to the "personal well-being of each citizen."
Yes, public health came to be a branch of medicine in this era. Most people still don't understand that the proper mission of public health is to provide vital health services that would be very difficult or impossible for the individual to provide himself, such as fluoridation, food safety, and vaccination.
2.) The AMA and AAMC "resurrected the...Flexner vision" of public health primacy?
Perhaps you haven't notice that both of these organizations denounced Abraham Flexner in 2020 as a "racist and sexist" and unfairly blamed him for the closure of Black and women medical schools. Flexner was all about rigor and excellence in science-base medical education; that is being lost today.
3.) Unethical research today? The country is silly with it. Research abuses subjects in a variety of ways: no fully informed consent, misuse of the subjects' resources, and withholding effective treatment. Deceptive pharmacological research doesn't test a new drugs against older drugs but only against a placebo. Therefore, it is unknown if the new drug is more or less effective.
Alternative medicine research (often funded by government) has wasted billions in resources on highly implausible hypotheses, with poorly designed protocols. The human subjects are rarely given fully informed consent in these studies. In one experiment, American researchers went to the Dominican Republic to test if "massage" (possibly "Therapeutic Touch") was a beneficial treatment for children diagnosed with HIV; treatments known to be effective were withheld from the children.
One area that is ridiculously evil is Commie China’s organ harvesting, transplantation program. Analysis shows they have to be getting HLA markers/typing on their prisoners. Now, you are some rich Saudi sheik. Your doc sends them your labs and they search their “inventory”. If they have someone then YOU TELL THEM when you want it. They will make sure guy is dead, organ harvested and sitting on the back table all dissected down checked for viability and ready to plug and play synchronously by the time your surgical team has you anesthetized and your kidney ischemic.