BAM and Ourselves

The Brain Activity Map (BAM) is a project currently being planned by the Obama administration. Its goal is simple but daunting: to build a comprehensive map of the activity that goes on in the brain. The project faces plenty of challenges: it is expected to take at least a decade and cost billions of dollars. Its potential rewards, though, are tempting: not just a deeper understanding of the brain, but of diseases like Alzheimer's, and of our own consciousness.

What does our understanding of consciousness entail, exactly? On the surface it is simply scientific progress, a better understanding of our place in the world. But are these questions ones we want to answer? There seems to be something different about these questions compared to our inquiries about the universe. 

Take, for example, free will: if we can map out the brain, perhaps we'll be able to understand whether free will is simply a romantic fiction. Do we want to know the answer to this, or is it better to leave this area unexplored? If it turns out that all our decisions can be reproduced by a sufficiently complex, deterministic model of the brain, can we go on blaming thieves and murderers for their wrongdoing?

And what about the sort of artificial intelligence that will arise from this project? If we can map the brain, will we be able to simulate it as well? If we can, the mind-body problem will take on a much more real edge: will this brain have desires, hopes, dreams? Will it have the ability to gain self-awareness? Would it have rights like you or I do? – it doesn't seem that having a body is an ethically important distinction. 

Uncharted territory in science has always been unsettling: we are unsure of what we might find, but we press on into the unknown. But what happens when science changes our perception of ourselves, when it gains the ability to create suffering? Could it be that some questions about the brain are best left unexplored? 

Sources

NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/science/project-seeks-to-build-map-of-human-brain.html?pagewanted=all)

Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21573089-ambitious-project-map-brain-works-possibly-too-ambitious-hard)

Head Start: Are Anthrax Vaccines for Children Permissible?

According to a story by NPR, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has concluded that further testing must be done before a new anthrax vaccine can be tested on children. Because anthrax holds the potential to serve as a dangerous biological weapons, a vaccine against it has already been given to over a million adults in the military. Still, given that its effects are unknown on children, the commission declared that the risk from the vaccine must be demonstrably minimal before it can be tested on children and suggested that the vaccine be tested first on young adults. Assuming that the young adults were not adversely affected by the vaccine, it could then be administered to increasingly younger groups before finally being given to children.

While I do not find the commission’s decision to be objectionable, I do think that one issue that has apparently been overlooked is the consent of the children involved. Assuming that an anthrax vaccine were developed that stood only to pose a “minimal risk” for children, on what basis would test subjects be chosen? Would the children have to provide consent to participate in vaccination trials? Perhaps it can be said that parents should provide consent for their children’s participating in such trials in their stead. The problem with such a proposal, however, is that even though the vaccines would be of “minimal risk” by the time they were tested on children, their being of minimal risk would be known only through tests done on older groups, meaning that they may pose unexpected dangers to children. Hence, the vaccines’ being of minimal risk might not be a helpful indicator of the danger they pose to children.

On the other hand, if we suppose that the children’s consent is necessary, then we are faced with a number of problems. How do we know when a child has really given consent? Is there a certain age limit below which a child’s consent does not really count? These questions are by no means easily answered, and, although it will not be for some time until the vaccine is ready for child testing anyways, formulating solutions to these issues ahead of time (perhaps by drawing on past cases of tests involving child vaccination for dangerous diseases) is essential if the commission’s recommendation is to be taken seriously.

Fight Wars with Drugs

Is it ethical to force a person to take medications in order to keep alert? Can a boss require a subordinate to take stimulants such as caffeine so that he gets the work done? Is there a difference between coffee and drugs like amphetamine? Also, in a time of war, can the commander require the troop to take these drugs to stay alert? Where should we draw the line between the uses of these drugs? These are some common ethical debates on the use of drugs.

Since 1937, doctors can prescribe amphetamine for clinical uses. During World War II, the United States Air Force commonly abused this drug during flights. It raised some ethical debates on whether it was right to use amphetamine, and in 1991, the Air Force banned the use of flight medications, including amphetamines. However, I think military should not ban the use of such drugs because the benefits may outweigh the risks.

Requiring soldiers to take stimulants might sound immoral. However, we have to take into account that during a war, the normal rules may not apply. For example, it may be wrong to kill people, but that becomes inevitable in times of war. The same goes with drugs. It may be wrong for the head of a company to require stimulants for the subordinates, but the benefits associated with the drug outweighs the risks during war. There is evidence to show that amphetamine significantly improves the reaction time, hand-eye coordination, physical strengths, and endurance. The use of the drug may determine whether a soldier lives or dies in a battle. Sometimes, this may be the only thing that keeps the pilot awake during his flight.

Of course, these drugs are not omnipotent. In 2002, an American F-16 pilot accidentally bombed the Canadian troops in Afghanistan because his judgment was impaired by the use of dexedrine, which is another kind of stimulant. Accidents like this are often inevitable in wars, but if drugs can raise the awareness of the soldiers, they should be allowed, or perhaps even enforced during a military operation. Even though drugs can improve soldiers' abilities, they should still be regulated by the commanders to avoid abuses and to limit the accidents due to judgment impairments. It is best that soldiers get enough rest so that their performance can be maximized, but if that is not possible, drugs can provide a temporary substitute that can save their lives.

Also consider the possibility that we will one day create enhancement drugs without any side effects. Will there still be oppositions against their use during war? After all, if the ultimate goal of the war is to win (though it might be better not to have wars at all), then the use of enhancement drugs without side effects have a clear benefit because it will help achieve the goal.

Sources

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/spr97/cornum.html

http://sciencefocus.com/feature/health/sleepless-battle

Cloning embryos--Do the ends justify the means?

For decades the subject of human cloning has aroused feelings of fear and suspicion. Policymakers, social activists and religious leaders condemned the birth of Dolly the sheep, the world’s first successfully cloned mammal, in 1997. People feared that this event marked the first step towards creating a cloned human child. At the time, ethical concerns could be pushed aside as science had not progressed to the point where human cloning was remotely possible. However, the pace of scientific research has been astounding. Just ten years later, scientists successfully cloned 20 monkey embryos. Finally, in October 2012, researchers at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Laboratory produced human embryonic stem cells using a novel technique. The stem cells were grown from a mixture of donor eggs with skin from patients with type-one diabetes.

This technique is expected to be useful in therapy for diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Embryonic stem cells grown from the body are special for two reasons. First, they can develop into different types of tissue—brain, heart, even bone. Second, since the tissues are derived from a person’s own cells, the body’s immune system will not reject them. To date, scientists are still improving cloned embryos and experimenting with stem cells for treatment. Meanwhile, several ethical debates have arisen concerning cloning and embryonic stem cells. For some opponents, the issue lies in the potential of using cloned embryos for reproduction. Others claim that it is morally wrong to create embryos and then destroy them to harvest stem cells for therapy. However, neither of these arguments is sufficient to justify a ban on cloned human embryos.

The phobia surrounding human cloning is based on “genetic determinism,” the idea that genetic makeup defines all aspects of a person’s identity (Hanna). Genetic determinism undermines the interplay of genes and the environment that factors into a person’s physical and behavioral traits. But this concern is also impractical, since scientists have no intention of implanting cloned embryos into the womb. The embryos produced in the lab have no potential of becoming human beings, due to defects that would keep them from sustaining a pregnancy. The purpose of these embryos is to grow tissues for treatment of disease; to develop a human clone fit for reproduction would perhaps require further decades of research. It seems unlikely that scientists could ever see cloning for non-medical purposes as a worthy undertaking.

In addition, the argument that producing stem cells entails destroying cloned embryos is problematic. This view assumes that a cloned embryo is entitled to the full rights of a person. Such a position is hard to maintain, considering cloned embryos do not have the potential to develop into functional human beings. Furthermore, compared with the alternatives, using cloned embryos as sources of stem cells seems to be the most ethical option. Other ways to obtain stem cells could be creating embryos from egg and sperm or “recycling” embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Such methods would invoke outrage. Taking stem cells from an embryo derived from a patient’s own tissue seems much more humane than exploiting embryos designed for human life.

Cloning embryos for stem cells is an innovation with potential to turn the tide on human disease in the world. Winding ethical arguments tend to detract from the crux of the matter—that this technology is intended to rebuild damage from illnesses, a mutually agreeable end. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21755931/ns/health-health_care/#.UUx80leReYF

http://www.genome.gov/10004765

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfc44dfc-efa3-11e0-941e-00144feab49a.html#axzz2OIKSBonX

Hi! I heal--and I kill

It is a dark moment when we conflate the notion of those who heal with those who kill.

In seventeen of the thirty-six states that administer the death penalty through lethal injection, execution of those on death row requires the presence of a doctor by law. In recent years, though, a number of medical groups, such as the American Medical Association, the Society of Correctional Physicians, and the American Board of Anesthesiologists, have censured such practices. The American Board of Anesthesiologists, for instance, began to revoke the license of any practitioner who acts as an accomplice in these executions. One of the primary reasons for this reaction is the fundamental role that doctrines such as the Hippocratic Oath play in the practice of medicine: “do no harm.” Since acting as an accomplice in the administration of fatal doses clearly goes against this tenet, many doctors feel that it violates the integrity of their profession.

The state laws requiring doctors for the management of the lethal injections often cite the importance of having a doctor’s medical knowledge to guard against messy complications in the procedure. However, it has been pointed out that adequately trained technicians would be just as capable of monitoring the process as doctors are. So if it actually is critical to have trained personnel on site, this task can be accomplished by some profession other than that of a doctor.

Why? the other side asks. Whether a doctor or anyone else in complicit in the execution is irrelevant to the final result, so the argument goes. However, in this case, the means are important. The stance just presented presupposes that there is nothing sacred about the concept of a doctor. But imagine asking a child to be participate at the execution. Sure, there are negative effects on the child’s health, so some might dismiss this example by saying that those harmful effects to the child are the reason this example is disturbing. The truth is, though, that even if the child were to suffer no negative effects, we would still be revolted by the prospect. There is something precious about certain stations in life, and, like childhood, the role of a doctor is something that we must guard carefully. A healer should have his function clearly delineated, whether or not a society believes in capital punishment. Thus, this question does not reduce to whether or not capital punishment is acceptable. While that is an important dilemma to pursue, the issue of whether doctors should participate in killings is separate, and also important to consider as a society. The function of a doctor is beautiful, and we should keep it that way.

Sources:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/22/doctors-and-death-penalty-cases/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/01/AR2010050103190.html

http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=1003

"Tools of the Mind"

        An experimental program is starting to provide very promising results among children as they grow up. Many different theories have been tested, focusing primarily on academic curricula and teaching based on reward and punishment. The goal has been to raise IQ levels and start the academic model of learning in a classroom setting at a very young age.

        Over the past few years, however, Deborah Leong and Elena Bodrova have started a program called “Tools of the Mind”, founded on the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s principles in the 1930s. The element that differentiates this method from its counterparts is that the objective is no longer to raise IQ but to improve the control of cognitive and emotional impulses, in other words, to train and increase willpower. Self-regulation has been found to be more malleable and a more indicative index of future success than IQ. Their method consists of engaging kindergarten-aged children in complex play under the form of “make-believe”. As they take on the roles of fictional characters, they are constrained by a whole set of social norms and conventions and must act accordingly. A child told to stand still can only do so for approximately a minute, but when he is told that he is a guard and must stand still to protect the fort, he can hold out for almost four.

        The issue this raises is whether the benefits outweigh the risks of psychologically testing different methods and philosophies on young children with the goal of raising their SAT scores by a few points ten of fifteen years down the line. Although there is no physical harm to their development, children are heavily influenced by their surroundings especially in the pre-school age range, and methods that were once all the rage have now produced a generation that is raising their own children in a completely new and “better” way. There is obviously no other way to test developmental and child psychology other than to apply it, but the results (only seen decades later once the child is grown up) are sometimes ambiguous and subjective, when it comes to evaluating social skills for instance. Raising a child is a delicate topic, and the choice to enroll them in pre-schools that test experimental learning methods should be carefully thought out.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Second Individual Cured of HIV

Recently the second person in the world has been cured of HIV. The first case was a man who went to Germany to get a bone marrow transplant for his leukemia, and happened to get the transplant from someone who was immune to HIV. This effectively cured him. This case was a girl who was born with her mother being HIV positive. Doctors stared this baby on a drug cocktail known as HAART when the baby was only 30 hours old. They attribute the success of the treatment to how early it was started.  However there are many negative side effects of HAART treatment such as bone problems, liver issues, increase in fat, increase in blood glucose levels, and lipodystrophy to name a few. My question is, is treatment like this acceptable to preform on such a young child?

            In my opinion the answer is absolutely yes. Even though this was giving to the infant incredibly early, before the HIV tests even came back on the baby, it was the swiftness in the treatment that cured the baby. Even with the negative side effects of the treatment, the benefits on the baby’s life are huge. It would be medically unethical to not treat the baby in my opinion. If there is a chance to cure the infant of HIV forever, even with negative side effects, I think that chance must be taken.

             

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21651225

http://www.livestrong.com/article/249257-the-side-effects-of-haart/