Read the following:
Then answer the following questions:
Would you expect the 2 daughters of the mother in the article to have a chance to have sons with muscular dystrophy? Explain.
Should we as a society spend more or less on diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy? Note that Duchenne Muscular dystrophy is fairly common compared to most single gene diseases, but much rarer than conditions like heart disease or autism.
If a cure is found but it is very expensive, should it be available to everybody? Why or why not?
A doctor in that article made (what I believe) to be a serious ethical error. What was it? Discuss.
Write your answers as a reply in the comments section
1. Yes this disease is a sex linked recessive disease so if the daughter passes the recessive gene to her son that child would definitely have it.
2. I think all diseases should be looked into but I think society should put more spending into this disease if we find a way to fix the disease many people who have a poor standard of life will suddenly have a much better standard of living.
3. Yes the cure should be available to all there health would be too great for it not to be available to all
4. One doctor refused to help her because there was nothing to gain. You should help people to create a better world for others with the disease it shouldn’t just be personal gain.
1. Yes, I think that the two daughters are carriers of the gene. We learned in class that muscular dystrophy is a sex-linked recessive disease shown only in men and that the daughters are capable of passing it along on one of their two X chromosomes.
2. I think that Duchenne should definitely be studied but I think that the way funding came about in this case made the most sense opposed to funding automatically being given out for research on every disease. I understand how difficult it was for Furlong to gain recognition in the medical community which is mostly attributed to the fact that there were very slim survival chances accompanied with a general lack of knowledge on the disease itself. In an ideal world, I would want to fund all disease research but I would say that I understand why it’s more difficult for unique diseases such as Duchenne to receive much attention.
3. Yes, I think that any and all cures should be available to the public at any cost as human lives are our greatest resource and picking money over the life of another person is the most selfish decision one can make.
4. I would say that the ethical error in this article was when French Anderson made the false promise of being able to cure Duchenne disease in 18 months. I think that giving that false hope to sufferers of this disease and their families was extremely unprofessional as he had nothing of actual merit behind those words.
1)I do think that the 2 daughters of the mother have a chance of having sons that may have muscular dystrophy. It is sex-linked recessive and if by chance the mother passes the recessive gene to her son, he will have it.
2) I think we should spend more on it because the people living with it have a very poor quality of life and some don’t even live long enough to have children and die near their 20’s.
3) Yes, it should be available to anybody, because if anybody was in the position of the person with the disease, they too would like to have access to it even if they couldn’t afford it.
4) The ethical error made is when a doctor named French Anderson said he would be able to find a cure for the disease but failed to and gave people who had the disease hope for nothing.
1.) Seeing as only the sons had the disease and not the daughters, and that it is a genetic disease it can be determined to be a sex-linked recessive gene. Thus the two daughters would be carriers of the gene and would be at risk for having boys with the gene.
2.) If this disease was more widespread it would get more funding but, as it is so rare we shouldn’t give all the attention to researching a cure for it as we should a more widespread problem like cancer or diabetes.
3.) If there was a cure cancer would it not be for everyone? Why is muscular dystrophy any different? Even if the price is astronomical the cure needs to be available to everyone.
4.) There were three ethical errors I saw. Firstly when the mother forged her husbands name first on a check then on a prescription. As a medical professional herself she should not have. Secondly when the two boys were diagnosed with the disease the acting physician gave no hope as to the boys future and immediately suggested how to cope with the disease. Lastly when at the conference Dr. Anderson made the claim that he could cure it in eighteen months only to leave the patients and their parents with a false sense of hope.
1) The disease is sex-link recessive. There is a pretty good chance that her son would have muscular dystrophy.
2) One one hand, the gene is more readily available to be studied because it is more common. On the other, rarer diseases are more often deadlier in nature and should have their causes figured out first. I would say study muscular dystrophy, though, because the key to the others might be hidden in understanding the more available.
3) It depends on how expensive the drug would be. Too expensive out of the reach of middle wage workers and the backlash would be crazy. Probably be better to rate it as a trial and create one with much less of a price tag.
4) No matter what, you should never promise anything as a doctor. There are so many complications to be had during the course of study that a promise could be broken very easily. False hope is never good for someone suffering.
1. I think that the two daughters of the mother could possibly have sons that have muscular dystrophy. Since the gene is sex linked recessive and shown only in men, the daughters could be carriers and then pass the gene along to her sons.
2. I think that we should be spending more time attending to and researching diseases that are more common. However, I do think that this is a terrible disease and the people that live with it should be taken care of and treatments should be studied.
3. Of course, the treatments should be made available to the people who need it. To deny people who a serious disease treatment would be cruel and unethical.
4. The ethical error made by Dr. French Anderson was that he said that he would cure the disease in just 18 months but then failed to do so. He gave hope to people who were suffering without being able to deliver, which is just inhumane.
1. Would you expect the 2 daughters of the mother in the article to have a chance to have sons with muscular dystrophy? Explain.
Yes I would expect the daughters to be carriers of the disease and they would pass it on to their sons. This disease is a sex linked disease passed down on the X chromosome so all of the sons and no daughters would have the disease.
2. Should we as a society spend more or less on diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy? Note that Duchenne Muscular dystrophy is fairly common compared to most single gene diseases, but much rarer than conditions like heart disease or autism.
Since the disease is less common it won’t get as much attention and funding. If should still receive funding but probably not as much as the funding as more common and widespread diseases.
3. If a cure is found but it is very expensive, should it be available to everybody? Why or why not?
Yes all cures should be available to everyone that has the disease. No one should have to die of a debilitating disease just because they don’t have the money.
4. A doctor in that article made (what I believe) to be a serious ethical error. What was it? Discuss.
The doctor should not have scolded her for having a second boy and telling her she should have had an abortion.
1. It’s a sex recessive linked disease so if my mother passes it down to her son, then he will have the disease.
2. I think we should still spend money on diseases that are not common. Jut because they aren’t common doesn’t mean they don’t affect people and families. My dad died from a very rare cancer compared to a common cancer and it has no cure (mesothelioma), but I think we should still try to fund things like that because they do affect people.
3. Yes! if someone has a disease, in my opinion, if they don’t have the money to pay for it, they still should be offered the treatment and the government take the tab for it. If someone who didn’t have the money to pay for it, they could die and they should be offered it whether or not they can afford it because its kind of like hospitals, they let you come in the ER whether or not you can afford it or not.
4. The ethical errors that I saw first was that he promised to have a cure in 18 months. A doctor or any profession should never claim something like that, it gives false hope, and there just comes a time when a doctor needs to be completely honest.
1. Yes, I do think that that two daughters will have a chance to have to give birth to sons with this disease. It’s a sex linked recessive so it goes through the mother to the sons.
2. Funding more for this disease to get research on it would be wonderful, but since the disease is not well known and it does not affect many people it will not get as much funding. Coming up for a cure if this disease will be quite a task. The reason for it to be hard is that a certain protein in each muscle is not developing so it cause the cells in the muscles to attack it’s self. So as a society I think it might not get the funding or attention that it deserves. As a society I think it shouldn’t be funded because of the rarity of the disease. If the disease becomes out of hand that is when we will take the issue and recognize it.
3. If a cure ever can available I think it should be inexpensive. It’s someones life at hand, and when you cannot afford it and you die because of it, I think that is a little unfair. When something this life threatening is out there and there is a cure for it, I think it should be released and be inexpensive.
4. The doctor that was very rude and didn’t think about what would have been right is the doctor from the Cincinnati Children Hospital, and he is a neurologist. The thing this neurologist did was very wrong is tell her that she should of known that she carried this disease and when she was pregnant for the second child she should have had it aborted. To me this astonishing that a doctor would tell their patient.