K. Lee Lerner – Medicine, Health, and Bioethics. Essential Primary Sources

Автор: K. Lee Lerner
Название книги: Medicine, Health, and Bioethics. Essential Primary Sources
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Медицина
Страницы: 567
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Essential Primary Source titles are part of a ten-volume
set of books in the Social Issues Primary Sources
Collection designed to provide primary source documents
on leading social issues of the nineteenth, twentieth,
and twenty-first centuries. International in scope,
each volume is devoted to one topic and will contain
approximately 160 to 175 documents that will include
and discuss speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper
articles, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels,
essays, songs, and works of art essential to understanding
the complexity of the topic.
Each entry will include standard subheads: key facts
about the author; an introduction placing the piece in
context; the full or excerpted document; a discussion of
the significance of the document and related event; and
a listing of further resources (books, periodicals, Web
sites, and audio and visual media).
Each volume will contain a topic-specific introduction,
topic-specific chronology of major events, an
index especially prepared to coordinate with the
volume topic, and approximately 150 images.
Volumes are intended to be sold individually or
as a set.
THE ESSENTIAL PRIMARY SOURCE SERIES
 Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources
 Medicine, Health, and Bioethics: Essential Primary
Sources
 Environmental Issues: Essential Primary Sources
 Crime and Punishment: Essential Primary Sources
 Gender Issues and Sexuality: Essential Primary Sources
 Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources
 Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary
Sources
 Social Policy: Essential Primary Sources
 Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary
Sources
 Family in Society: Essential Primary Sources
The social issues related to medical science are often
intimate and spark passionate debate. The primary
sources contained in Medicine, Health, and Bioethics
demonstrate the development, diversity, and nexus of
science and ethics as embodied in medical advances,
social policy, and law. Most importantly, the articles
selected show a complex range of views on topics such
as abortion, cloning, and stem cell research that are not
always easily characterized as ‘‘for’’ or ‘‘against.’’ The
intent is not to present the reader with all facets of a
topic but rather to provoke critical thinking while
providing both a foundation and desire to investigate
topics increasingly important in social and political
discourse.
The link between science and social issue is well
forged. Significant sums of public money go toward
biomedical research, and how much is spent on what
type of research can engender fractious political and
social debate. The fruits of that research bring new
temptations and possibilities that beckon some and
frighten others.
Since the 1950s, studies of the molecular biology
of the gene have provided answers to fundamental
questions about the mechanism of inheritance and
the relationship between genes and disease. In addition
to the articulation of the human genome sequence, the
metabolic basis of several hundred inherited disorders
is now known and many defective genes resulting in
such disorders have already been isolated.
The pace of advance in genetics is daunting, however,
and challenges both scientists and non-scientists
who must form rational opinions on the social issues
related to genetics that seem to arise with equal rapidity.
For example, geneticists have developed tools that
allow scientists to recreate steps in the evolution of
organisms within a laboratory environment. These
tools provide the means to carry out experiments that
nature alone is incapable of performing. With the
techniques of recombinant DNA technology, geneticists
have also learned how to transplant genes from
one organism to another, thus reshuffling genetic
material in ways never experienced in the evolution
of life on Earth. Such genetic advances and other
research into developmental biology easily leap from
the laboratory into the crucible of public discourse
regarding ‘‘life as we know it’’ versus ‘‘life as wemake it.’’
In turn, issues that were once purely social or ethical
issues, such as sexuality or alcoholism, are now
understood to be aspects of human behavior and personality,
at least in some part, influenced by genetics.
Many of the great successes for medical science are
also important social milestones for humanity, especially
with regard to the prevention and treatment of
infectious disease. Throughout history, microorganisms
have spread deadly diseases and caused widespread
epidemics that threatened and altered human
civilization. In the modern era, civic sanitation, water
purification, immunization, and antibiotics have dramatically
reduced the overall morbidity and the mortality
of disease in advanced nations. Yet, much of the
world is still ravaged by disease and epidemics, and
new threats constantly appear to challenge the most
advanced medical and public health systems.
Without question, advances such as the global
eradication of smallpox is a profound achievement in
human history. Also, an emphasis on wellness and
preventative health measures has allowed physicians
to fight a two-front war on disease while returning
primary responsibility for health and well-being to the
individual.
Regardless, social issues can still arise out of even
the most effective and seemingly well-intended of
medical advances. For example, although childhood
diseases such as measles, mumps, whooping cough,
and diphtheria have been effectively controlled by
childhood vaccinations, some parents resist or reject
vaccinating their own children because they feel that
the small personal risk is not mitigated by the larger
social benefit of disease control. By opting out of the
system by relying on the immunizations of others to
reduce the risk of disease, they rely upon the acts of
the social group to offer their children personal
protection.
The interplay of complex ethical and social considerations
is also evident when considering the general
rise of infectious diseases that sometimes occurs as
an unintended side effect of the otherwise beneficial
use of medications. Nearly half the world’s population,
for example, is infected with the bacterium causing
tuberculosis (TB) (although for most people the infection
is inactive) yet the organism causing some new
cases of TB is evolving toward a greater resistance to
the antibiotics that were once effective in treating TB.
Such statistics also take on added social dimension
when considering that TB disproportionately impacts
certain social groups such as the elderly, minorities,
and people infected with HIV.
Globalization and the increased contact between
societies also raises new biomedical concerns about the
potential spread of disease, and sparks social debate
regarding the nature and extent of medical cooperation
across a varied political landscape. A shrinking
global village, beneficial in many cultural and economic
aspects, increases the possibility that the terrible
loss of life associated with the plagues of the Middle
Ages or with the pandemic influenza outbreak of 1918
and 1919 might once again threaten humanity on a
worldwide scale.
Lastly, as if the challenges of nature and disease
were not sufficient, the political realities at the dawn of
the twenty-first century point toward a probability
that, within the first half of the century, biological
weapons will surpass nuclear and chemical weapons
in terms of potential threat to civilization. In such a
world, solutions to scientific and public health challenges
will spawn new and urgent debate than will span
traditional geographic and political boundaries to
become truly global social issues.
Because an understanding of the historical
development of medical science and the social issues
that arise from its advance is increasingly vital,
Medicine, Health, and Bioethics takes a sweeping view
of events over the last 200 years. The articles presented
in this volume are designed to be readable and
to instruct, challenge, and excite a range of student
and reader interests while, at the same time, providing
a solid foundation and reference for more
advanced study.
K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner