Word: organism
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...recently commissioned State of Massachusetts Task Force on Organ Transplants makes it clear that these operations, and "Baby Fae" and her transplanted baboon's heart are much more than isolated novelties created by media hype. In fact, they bring into public focus a controversy over the medical ethics and social implications of organ transplants. The task force has completed its study, addressing the problem of how to allocate organ transplants in the face of too few donor organs and too little money. Aside from this immediate concern, one of its major goals is, according to Marc S. Roberts, professor...
...Organ transplantation is no isolated controversy; the issue arises as one problem in the relationship between science and public policy. Technology, whether it be artificial hearts or atom bombs, continually outruns both ethical standards and public policy in two ways. The sometimes inconceivable new power of scientific advances that give us the ability to tinker with DNA, to replace a defective heart, disrupts the ethical standards we use to judge those powers. Secondly, the sheer speed at which science forces issues upon us outstrips ethical standards. Rapid technological change leaves little time to assess consequences; we cannot know what...
...society. The point is not to abandon the condemn/condone way of dealing with science ethics issues, but to see its inadequacy, to recognize that the rapidly changing and overwhelming new powers of science radically overturn the way we make ethical choices and public policies. The Task Force on Organ Transplants is a step in this direction...
According to Roberts, the concern of the task force is to limit the financial scale of the organ transplant business. The committee recommends a "no new facilities" policy in which the state would use the institutions, the hospitals, to restrict the number of operations performed. "Creating a limited capacity," in which "access [is] a function of medical condition" not of ability to pay, is the solution. Such restrictions would also ensure that other state-funded programs are not strangled by high costs of transplants...
...surgery performed less than two years ago. "The scarring made it difficult to identify structures," explained Lansing, who assisted in the operation. "It's like looking through a fog." As a result, instead of taking the usual five minutes, it took half an hour just to extract the organ. Once that was accomplished, DeVries easily installed the Jarvik heart, using the technique he had practiced and honed on hundreds of animals...