A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Month: February 2017

Stem cell therapy remains a form of treatment

Pär SegerdahlThere is a picture of stem cell therapy: It is in harmony with the body’s own way of functioning. Damaged tissue is regenerated as the body always regenerates tissue: through stem cells maturing into new body cells.

Patients can then hope for a body without a trace of disease: a healed body that takes care of itself as a healthy body does. It is almost as if we were not dealing a treatment at all, for the body restores itself, as it always does.

Stem cell therapy is certainly an important step towards effective treatment of several currently incurable diseases. The methods can also be said to be based on the body’s own way to regenerate tissue.

Nevertheless, I think we should emphasize that stem cell therapies are treatments next to others, with risks and benefits. Cells are transplanted into patients whose immune system can react. The implants may need to be checked regularly, or even be replaced. The transplantation can go wrong. And so on.

Stem cell therapy does not “transcend” all disease treatment hitherto by supporting the body’s own way of healing itself. We are still dealing with treatments of patients, rather than with “salvation from disease.”

Rhetoric of salvation is dangerous. It invites magicians and our faith in them. It justifies sacrifices to the benefit of Mankind. It disturbs our judgement.

Pär Segerdahl

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The temptation of rhetoric - the ethics blog

Commercialization, but not at any price

Pär SegerdahlIn a previous post, I tried to make the point that the pharmaceutical industry can support altruism between research participants and patients, despite the fact that the industry itself is not altruistic but is driven by profit. Medical research will not benefit patients, unless results are developed into commercially available treatments.

However, this presupposes, of course, that pricing is reasonable, so that we can actually afford the drugs. Otherwise, research and research participation become meaningless.

Today, I just want to recommend an article in the journal Cell, where the authors argue that the prices of new cancer drugs have become indefensibly high. They propose new collaborations between academic researchers and small companies, to offer cancer drugs at more reasonable prices. Researchers should ensure that the companies they work together with are willing to sell the drugs with smaller profit margins.

You can find a summary of these ideas in The Guardian.

Pär Segerdahl

Workman, P. Draetta, G. F., Schellens, J. H. M., Bernards, R. (2017). How much longer will we put up with $100,000 cancer drugs? Cell 168: 579-583.

This post in Swedish

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Not just facts, ideas are also needed

Pär SegerdahlWhen fraudulent “academic” journals publish articles without proper peer review. When websites online spread fake information. When politicians talk about alternative facts. Then undeniably, one feels a need for a general tightening up.

A possible problem in this reaction is that we castrate ourselves. That we don’t dare to propose and discuss ideas about the situation we are in. That we don’t dare to think, interpret and analyze. Because we fear being found guilty of error and of contributing to the scandalous inflation of facts and truths.

We hide ourselves in a gray armor of objectivity. In order not to resemble what we react to.

But why do these tendencies occur now? Is it about the internet? Is it about neglected groups of citizens? Is it about economic and political shifts in power?

In order to understand this complex situation and act wisely, we need not just facts but also good questions, thoughts, interpretations and analyses of the situation. If we take that task seriously, we also take relevant facts seriously when we discuss the ideas.

If we react with hypercorrection, with an armor of correctness, we risk repressing our questions about how we should think about our situation. We repress our uncertainty: the motive for thinking, interpreting and analyzing.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

We care about communication - the Ethics Blog