Unit 8 Seeing Both Sides

Unit 8 Seeing Both SidesATape scriptsChina's long acknowledged symbol, the dragon, may not be suitable for the image of China anymore. At least that's according to a report in the Shanghai Morning Post, the paper quotes experts at the Shanghai Public Relations Association who said the dragon is to some extent a symbol of arbitrariness and offensiveness in western cultures. This they say could result in a negative view of China's image abroad. Now they are designing a new Chinese symbol based on positive Chinese characteristics. However the move has triggered disagreement in the public domain and an Internet survey shows that an overwhelming majority of people believe that as descendents of the dragon, the image of the dragon is deeply rooted in Chinese people's psyche and can't simply be abandoned. In traditional Chinese culture, the dragon represents the emperor's power and it is also a symbol of good luck and wealth.BTape scriptsBiofuels have been held in some quarters as an answer to global warming. Supporters argued that the plants which are grown to be turned into fuel capture the carbon dioxide that is emitted when the fuel is burned. They are already used in some road vehicles, but they have never been tried in aero planes. But now a Virgin Atlantic aircraft has been flown from London to Amsterdam to test an aviation fuel made from crops to show it actually works.A Boeing 747 takes off, powered partly by coconut oil. Virgin Atlantic say they are testing a new biofuel, a mixture of coconut oil and babassu nut oil from a Brazilian palm tree. Flying a jumbo jet at 30,000 feet on an alternative energy has never been done before. Richard Branson, Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic says it is the future of air travel and aviation history. " It's a major sort of technological breakthrough today in that everybody said that it was impossible for clean fuels to fly at 30,000 feet in a jet engine and we believe that we were going to be able to prove them wrong. " But Virgin's testflight hasn't been welcomed by environmentalists, instead it has been dismissed as a stunt by some, and attacked by others. Jos Dings from the European Federation for Transport and Environment. "The fact that something is called biofuel, doesn't mean that it's green. The fact that it is alternative fuel, doesn't mean that it's a green fuel. It depends crucially on what sort of biofuel you use, how much land that biofuel actually uses. If Virgin would power its entire fleet with biofuel, it would have to use about half of the UK's arable land. " The campaign group Friends of the Earth call the test flight a distraction and a gimmick. The Campaign against Climate Change say the belief this biofuel emits less carbon than conventional fuel is nonsense. They point to evidence that the growing processing and burning of biofuels emits other greenhouse gases, and their benefits unnegligible. Virgin Atlantic say the fuel isn't perfect, but it could be a new beginning of aviation.CTape scriptsYou will be aware of the controversy in Europe and over food that has been genetically modified. But scientists want to do this?Well, genetic engineering could be used to repair a genetic .,defect,, as with the current scientific trials of gene therapy in humans; to make a characteristic already natural to that organism even better, for example, to increase the growth rate of a crop; to improve resistance to disease or outside damage, for example, crop disease or resistance to cold or drought; to make the organism do something it would not normally do, for example, getting a tomato to ripen without going soft - this can be done simply by taking one of its own genes, turning its "pattern" upside down and putting it back again !It sounds like an amazing new technology, but opinions differ greatly on the pros and cons of genetically engineered food (GE food).Supporters of GE food say that GE crops will reduce chemical inputs to the land, help the environment, increase the possibility of growing crops in difficult geographic areas, improve nutritional qualities of food.Opponents of GE food say that GE crops may upset the complex environmental balance , create many new non-reversible ecological problems, increase the dominance of major corporations and disadvantage small farmers, as these rich corporations willcontrol seed varieties, at the worst, cause damage to the human immune system and cause cancer.At the moment, there is much controversy surrounding GE food.Some people claim GE food is safe for humans and safe for the environment and will benefit everyone.Some say they support research into GE food because they recognize the possible benefits for economic food supply in the future.But many also say that nothing has yet been proved for this new technology and the risks are so great, that it is wise to go slow. None of the GE foods so far produced are at all necessary. So why are they being sold? Why not wait longer until more scientific trials are carried out?Some say no to GE foods. They are not worth the risk to the environment and our health. They say organic or semi-organic farming is the answer to feeding the world. This type of farming needs lots of labor, but needs no debt and no large corporations. Others are angry that GE food is already being sold and that there is no way for consumers to know if they are consuming food made from plants that have had their genes altered in a laboratory. They feel that they have been tricked by big corporations and they do not like being human guinea pigs for this new GE food. They insist on clear labeling on food packaging to show whether GE food products are present.It is a brave new world we are facing in the twenty-first century. As the molecular biologist Michael Antoniou says: “Genetic engineering and conventional breeding are worlds apart.” What Natu re has done for us for millions of years is now suddenly out-of-date. Today's scientists face huge problems in deciding whether the benefits of the new technology are worth the risks. It is your future that is being decided here. It might be worth offering the scientists some guidance.Tape scriptsLiane: Trust was a word that was used early and often during the campaign, and when it comes to politicians, people really must think about whether they can trust their representatives to represent them. But when it comes to the relationship between a patient and doctor, the word trust should be a given. Doctors are, after all, supposed todo what's best for us and this involves telling the truth. However, on occasion, a doctor must choose between being truthful and acting in the patient's best interest. We asked our medical commentators, Drs Michael Wilkes and Miriam Shuchman to join us with their opinions on this subject. Good morning to both of you.Both: Good morning, Liane.Liane : Miriam, when might a doctor choose not to tell a patient the truth?Miriam: Well, Liane, there are actually several situations when a doctor might be tempted to deceive a patient. It used to be that if a patient was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer, the doctor wouldn't even tell them. That wouldn't happen anymore ... uh .. . but the doctor might be tempted to paint a more optimistic picture than is really the case, so if this was a cancer where the patient has three to six months to live, the doctor might not tell them that. They might just tell them that it's very serious.Michael: My worry, though, is that doctors might also paint a more rosy picture in order to convince a patient to undergo a more aggressive treatment, say , chemotherapy , a treatment that they might not under . . . or choose to undergo if they had more information. To, to me, uh, there really is no distinction between withholding information from a person and outright lying. In both cases, the doctor is being paternalistic. He's deciding what information the patient needs to know.Miriam: I think that as doctors, though, we're always in the position of deciding what information to give a patient. We don't want to overburden them with too many details that could just be frightening and not useful. But we want them to have the information that's really important for making decisions.Michael: Yeah, but can you ever really know what a patient thinks is important? Every piece of information that a doctor gives a patient is filtered through the doctor's filter- a filter that includes cultural bias, religious bias, economic bias, and their own personal values. And there's some very compelling data that sick people really want much more information about their condition than they're currently being told.Liane: Michael, have you ever been tempted to be less than perfectly honest with a patient?Michael: Absolutely. There's always that temptation, Liane. Telling the truth in medicine is one of the most difficult things to do. The . . . uh . . . there is an issue that came uprecently when another physician suggested that I prescribe a placebo, or sugar pill, that had no biological effects for a patient. A 70-year-old man had just moved to town and he came to see me to get a refill of a prescription for a sleeping pill that he'd been given for a long time. In fact, it turned out he's been taking the pill every night since his wife died several years ago. As I spoke with him, it became clear to me that he recognized that he was addicted to the sleeping medicine. In fact, he said he wanted to stop, but every time he tried to stop taking the medicine, he couldn't sleep and ended up taking a sleeping pill. Now, a doctor at the hospital suggested that I use a placebo. He said that he'd had great luck using this kind of placebo for exactly these types of addictions. The problem was that there was no way that I could use the placebo without deceiving the patient. So the issue here for me was whether doctors are justified in telling this sort of little white lies in order to benefit the patient.Liane: Miriam, as an ethics specialist, what do you say? What does medical ethics tell us is right in this situation?Miriam: Well, I think the conflict for the doctor here is that he's really seeing two duties. One is not to lie to a patient, and the other is, uh, to always do what's beneficial for the patient, not to do harm. So, in this case, the doctor who suggested the placebo may think that it's most beneficial to prescribe the placebo, it won't have any side effects, uh, and . . . the little white lie he thinks is not as important.Liane: So , should people be concerned that, uh, when they go to their doctor, that the doctor might be prescribing a placebo?Miriam: Absolutely not. First, the use of placebos in clinical practice is very rare. They're mostly used in research where people are told they're going to be receiving a placebo. And second, there are doctrines and policies around this. It's called informed consent, and what it means is that before a patient can agree to a given treatment or procedure, the doctor is obliged to inform them about the risks and benefits of that treatment, and most doctors are aware of that.Michael: You know, it's probably worth mentioning here that experts feel that about 30V o of the medicines that we currently prescribe really have no biologic activity. They work through the power of suggestions. Um . . . cough medicines are a great example of this sort of drug. Now, that doesn't mean that cough medicines don't work. What I'm tryingto suggest is that they work through an effect on the mind rather than on the body, say, on the diaphragm or in the lung tissue or muscles themselves.Anyway, I feel there are still far too many times when doctors really aren't being truthful with patients because they feel that they know what's best for the patient. Liane: We talked about placebos, but what about lying? How often do doctors lie to their patients?Miriam: Liane, I can't give you a statistic on that but I don't think it happens very often. Doctors don't in . . . intentionally mislead their patients. But what does happen is that patients aren't given the information they really need to make decisions. Doctors don't give them the chance to ask the questions that would get them that information. Liane: Michael, what happened to the man that was hooked on the sleeping pill? Michael: Liane, we talked about it for a long time at the hospital. The bottom line was I, uh, I chose not to use a placebo. The downside of that decision is that the man is still addicted to the medicine although I'm slowly weaning him off by using some behavior modification techniques.Liane: “Weekend Edition “medical commentators Dr Michael Wilkes and Dr Miriam Shuchman.Part III A radio debateTape scriptsHost: Good morning, and welcome to today's broadcast of "Seeing Both Sides. " Today we have something very interesting for you - a very controversial topic. Is it a moral use of technology to take advantage of aborted fetal tissue for medical experimentation? Our guests today are Dr Jasmine Farnazeh, head of the Organization of Physicians for Responsible Research, and the Reverend William Cooper. They're here to discuss the moral and medical implications of this new area of research. Good morning, Doctor and Reverend. (Good morning!) (Good morning!) Dr Farnazeh, let's begin by hearing the arguments in favor.Farnazeh: Well, scientifically speaking, it's clear that aborted fetal tissue is quite a gold mine. It is been proven to be extremely successful in grafting new tissue for use with burn victims. Research is being done into other potential uses as well.Host: Reverend Cooper, how do you respond to that? What about these benefits? Cooper: Well, of course I see the doctor's point, and it is extremely important to do everything possible in terms of research to alleviate human suffering; however, you can't ignore the fact that fetal tissue is a product of abortion, which many consider to be an act of murder. Just as we hope you would not kill another person to benefit yourself, it is immoral to use the life of a fetus in this way.Farnazeh: Yes, Reverend Cooper, I suppose some people could say abortion is an act of murder, but it's really important to clearly separate issues here. You can't ignore the fact that abortion is legal in this country at this time. Certainly, while we can recognize that as a grave human tragedy, it is a fact that it happens frequently, thousands of times every day. If this is the case, it makes good medical sense to derive any benefit from it that we can. Isn't the tragedy perhaps minimized if this tissue can be used to further human life? And, indeed, in terms of using this tissue to create new, living healthy skin for burn victims, are we not in some small way allowing that life to continue? Cooper: That's one way of looking at it. However, another way of looking at it is to say that the life of that fetus deserves every opportunity to grow and develop as an individual - that using these victims is simply adding insult to injury. And really, Dr Famazeh, can you seriously mean to imply that the benefit this tissue provides for skin grafts for burn victims balances the fact that a human life and all its potential has been taken without its consent?Farnazeh: Maybe you have a point there, and I'm sure many people would agree with you, but the flip side of the issue is that our greatest moral obligation is to the living. As long as abortion is legal, as long as those fetuses are not developing into full-fledged human rife, it seems we must devote our energies to concentrating on and helping in every way possible those who are alive and suffering.Cooper: What exactly do you mean, Dr Farnazeh? Are you condoning abortion? Farnazeh: It doesn't matter whether or not I condone it. on one hand, we could spend a great dear of time arguing about the moral implications of abortion. on the other hand, this would be a waste of time since our opinions don’t change the fact that it’s legal. We may as we' simply accept the legality and go from there.Host: You've both raised a number of very int eresting points. I’m sure you've given ourlisteners a lot of food for thought about this complex and controversial issue. Let’s take a short break now, and when we return we’ll take some calls from our listeners.。