Good Morning!
My understanding of philosophy is pretty limited, and I often find myself stalled in the pages of "philosophical works", especially the drier ones, like Kant's. But...it is pretty clear he nailed it with an early formulation of his categorical imperative: act only in such a way that would be acceptable as a universal law.
A corollary of this is do not treat people as if they are a means to an end. Treating people as an abstraction, as a number, as an experiment, or as something to generate wealth from is exactly this.
True, I wheel around to the psycho-pharmaceutical industry quite often. The main reason is that it is so corrupt and has a gigantic and often harmful impact on young people. And when the corruption involves major medical schools, journals, giant corporations, and the execution of basic science, I don't think enough can be said.
Over the next few days I will be posting a few items on some pretty rotten practices. Hopefully the tide is turning against these doctors, scientists, lobbyists, and writers that are engaging in them. If the basis of ethical, humanistic action is to "not use people as a means to an end" then perhaps the only way of avoiding doing so is to insure full and informed consent.
The distortion of experimental findings makes consent on the consumer's part absolutely impossible.
Read this article on Harvard's Medical School. Here is a teaser:
BOSTON — In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.
My understanding of philosophy is pretty limited, and I often find myself stalled in the pages of "philosophical works", especially the drier ones, like Kant's. But...it is pretty clear he nailed it with an early formulation of his categorical imperative: act only in such a way that would be acceptable as a universal law.
A corollary of this is do not treat people as if they are a means to an end. Treating people as an abstraction, as a number, as an experiment, or as something to generate wealth from is exactly this.
True, I wheel around to the psycho-pharmaceutical industry quite often. The main reason is that it is so corrupt and has a gigantic and often harmful impact on young people. And when the corruption involves major medical schools, journals, giant corporations, and the execution of basic science, I don't think enough can be said.
Over the next few days I will be posting a few items on some pretty rotten practices. Hopefully the tide is turning against these doctors, scientists, lobbyists, and writers that are engaging in them. If the basis of ethical, humanistic action is to "not use people as a means to an end" then perhaps the only way of avoiding doing so is to insure full and informed consent.
The distortion of experimental findings makes consent on the consumer's part absolutely impossible.
Read this article on Harvard's Medical School. Here is a teaser:
BOSTON — In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.
Mr. Zerden later discovered something by searching online that he began sharing with his classmates. The professor was not only a full-time member of the Harvard Medical faculty, but a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.
“I felt really violated,” Mr. Zerden, now a fourth-year student, recently recalled. “Here we have 160 open minds trying to learn the basics in a protected space, and the information he was giving wasn’t as pure as I think it should be.”
Mr. Zerden’s minor stir four years ago has lately grown into a full-blown movement by more than 200 Harvard Medical School students and sympathetic faculty, intent on exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard’s 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes.
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