One of the great ironies in the current climate is the H&S (Health and Safety) mantra quoted so often to justify policies designed to restrict freedom and choice in our society. In fact H&S can be directly attributed to several deaths over the last year alone. Like everything else in life it is an ideal corrupted by politicians for their own ends and has not been cost effective for a long time.
The irony that someone who is living with a terminal disease cannot try a potential cure because it is too risky seems to be to be the final triumph of absurdity. In effect saying No because they are worried about a very unhealthy persons health. People who can travel abroad to kill themselves I’m sure would rather be guinea pigs if there was even a small chance that they could be cured or even have their lives improved by a fraction. In this land of freedom though we do not even have the chance. Imagine the leaps forward we could make if we allowed people some dignity in their deaths.
I’ve often wondered why these people don’t try ‘suicide by cop’. It used to be available only in other countries but it seems to be growing here and I suspect it will only get worse especially as (Not so) NICE seem to consider themselves the champions of who dies for social equality.
Nevertheless. I wonder how many wonder drugs have been scrapped because although they cure cancer they have a 40% chance of causing diabetes or something. How many are held up in the approval queue because funds are being priorities to AIDS research or HIV. I understand the US is worse than us in this respect although I suspect that we have overtaken them in this respect by now. We are world leaders in stupidity.
There must be a better way than what we do but to allow someone to die a horrible death because there may be unknown side effects just cannot be right. Might be keeping within the law and the advice of the governments and/or their advisers but is it morally right? I don’t think so.
It cannot be unsafe for others to allow terminal patients to try a new wonder drug and to worry about their health whilst they are dying from a fatal illness is beyond parody. The only downsides are that they die quicker from the same disease or they die from something else and in both cases something potentially more painful. The downsides for science is that we learn little from the treatment. The upsides though are tremendous. We can save a life perhaps with side effects. We can gather data from the treatment and perhaps learn how to improve it.
Of course we would need to have iron clad contracts so we couldn’t get sued by the estates but I would envision that transparency in development and honesty whilst describing the risks would make such contracts valid.
It must be better than what we do now.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Health and Safety for the not Healthy
One of the great ironies in the current climate is the H&S (Health and Safety) mantra quoted so often to justify policies designed to restrict freedom and choice in our society. In fact H&S can be directly attributed to several deaths over the last year alone. Like everything else in life it is an ideal corrupted by politicians for their own ends and has not been cost effective for a long time.
The irony that someone who is living with a terminal disease cannot try a potential cure because it is too risky seems to be to be the final triumph of absurdity. In effect saying No because they are worried about a very unhealthy persons health. People who can travel abroad to kill themselves I’m sure would rather be guinea pigs if there was even a small chance that they could be cured or even have their lives improved by a fraction. In this land of freedom though we do not even have the chance. Imagine the leaps forward we could make if we allowed people some dignity in their deaths.
I’ve often wondered why these people don’t try ‘suicide by cop’. It used to be available only in other countries but it seems to be growing here and I suspect it will only get worse especially as (Not so) NICE seem to consider themselves the champions of who dies for social equality.
Nevertheless. I wonder how many wonder drugs have been scrapped because although they cure cancer they have a 40% chance of causing diabetes or something. How many are held up in the approval queue because funds are being priorities to AIDS research or HIV. I understand the US is worse than us in this respect although I suspect that we have overtaken them in this respect by now. We are world leaders in stupidity.
There must be a better way than what we do but to allow someone to die a horrible death because there may be unknown side effects just cannot be right. Might be keeping within the law and the advice of the governments and/or their advisers but is it morally right? I don’t think so.
It cannot be unsafe for others to allow terminal patients to try a new wonder drug and to worry about their health whilst they are dying from a fatal illness is beyond parody. The only downsides are that they die quicker from the same disease or they die from something else and in both cases something potentially more painful. The downsides for science is that we learn little from the treatment. The upsides though are tremendous. We can save a life perhaps with side effects. We can gather data from the treatment and perhaps learn how to improve it.
Of course we would need to have iron clad contracts so we couldn’t get sued by the estates but I would envision that transparency in development and honesty whilst describing the risks would make such contracts valid.
It must be better than what we do now.