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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1987)
■ i Monday, February 2, 1987rfhe Battalion/Page 3 Bioethics Seminar cientist: Babies’ medical care hould be decided by parents By Carolyn Garcia Staff Writer ■ The government needs to stop djktating medical decisions about ba bies born with genetic handicaps and should give that right back to par ents, a geneticist at the Temple Scott and White Clinic said Saturday. ■ Sheila Dobin addressed the topic al part of a bioethics seminar held at Texas A&M and sponsored by Con- g" :gation Beth Shalom, the Jewish Women’s Club and the Hillel Jewish Student Center. Other issues discussed during the seminar were the development of an artificial heart, informed consent and patients’ rights, and decision making as a personal choice rather than an institutional one. “If they don’t want to give the right back then they better have some way of covering the cost of these babies,” Dobin said. The cost per day in a neo-natal in tensive care unit is about $10,000, she said, and the government’s con tradicting policies are creating a di lemma for parents, hospitals, doc tors and insurance companies. “You’ve got one regulation that says you have to save every baby no matter what the handicapping con dition, and you have another regula tion that says you have to save costs,” Dobin said. “Who is going to pay for all these babies?” she said. “Parents can’t, Medicaid doesn’t, insurance doesn’t and you have a limit to what your in surance will pay. Once the insurance terns t-j oducta lingsd Dr. David Gross uses a diagram to discuss the development of the artificial heart. Photo by Marcena Fadal Prof discusses artificial heart decisions ribec® Kellie Copeland asnJi Reporter ‘kancIB Ethical and financial questions )rgr , concerning who should pay for the development of a completely artifi- ^ttvctedal heart and how decisions should biguinl duct J ;e sai'l icken.' ■nt eta pant ingrec ig to e are 11 :n chichi be incesei 1 ] sugf gular ’ not >ur dti ,-sareri ns are] ; gets. MM ofecoij | -oiler ^ -e jnds,#| roiler‘ : morel nugfj be made regarding who should re ceive one were raised by Dr. David Gross, a Texas A&M professor of veterinary physiology and pharma cology. Gross was one of four speakers who discussed bioethical issues at a seminar Saturday. Gross’ lecture featured a slide pre sentation that showed functions of the normal heart, the theory and evolution of the artificial heart, and the status of research being done on the heart. Gross said the National Institute of Health has spent over $5 million a See Heart, page 8 runs out, there is no one to pay for it.” Dobin said doctors must base their decisions about handicapped babies on “quality of life,” according to a Health and Human Services code. “The problem with the ruling is that it now takes parental decisions away from parents,” she said. “We are now saving babies that are less than 1,000 grams in weight. They’re premature infants, and the ruling See Babies, page 8 Prof discusses principles of patient rights By Kim Roddy Reporter The principles behind informed consent and patient rights were dis cussed Saturday by industrial engi neering professor Dr. William Hy man at the bioethics seminar held in Rudder Tower. “Each individual has the right to autonomous control over their body, and therefore they alone have the authority to decide all actions that might be undertaken at that time,” Hyman said. The concept of informed consent is that permission should be based on a full and understood disclosure of the benefits and risks of any pro posed procedure or experiment, Hyman explained. “Prior to undertaking any actions upon the individual, that individual must be made to be informed, and their permission received or den ied,” he said. In applying ethics to the concept of autonomy, the problem lies with the question of who has control of one’s body, he said. “The ability to make an informed decision is not a substitute for confi- See Patient Rights, page 8 Photo by Marcena Fadal Panel members, from left to right. Dr. David Gross, geneticist Sheila Dobin, Dr. William Hyman and Rabbi Peter Tarlow discuss bio ethics. The seminar was held Saturday in Rudder Tower. Ethics of discussed by rabbi By Shannon Boysen Reporter Moral and ethical issues sur rounding patients’ medical care choices were discussed by Rabbi Peter Tarlow in a bioethics seminar Saturday in Rudder Tower. Tarlow, a graduate assistant in the sociology department and president of the Campus Ministers Associa tion, used traditional models, includ ing Jewish law and rabbinical au thority, while presenting his views on personal decision-making. Questions raised in the seminar concerned patients’ rights to know all information about their medical condition and the practice of genetic counseling and testing. “The entire medical establishment is on a quixotic journey, a journey to defeat death,” Tarlow said. “The long-term consequences would be so horrendous, there would be a ‘Tower of Babel’ like no one has ever seen.” While the other seminar speakers argued that patients have the right to know everything about their med ical condition, including results of genetic testing, Tarlow said there are some situations in which the knowledge would only cause stress to the patient. “Do we have the right to play God?” he asked. “It’s difficult to ex pect any human to know all angles of all situations. Telling or not telling a person of what you think might or might not happen could very well put us in that very position.” Bringing up the issue of faith, Tarlow said the other speakers were making assumptions that people would be able to trust researchers completely and believe they never make mistakes. See Rabbi, page 8 1987 BUSINESS CAREER FAIR RECEPTION for Career Fair ’87 by Invitation Only Monday, Feb. 2 7:00 pm, Hilton jotlfi The ^ 1987 Career Fair BANQUET Tuesday, Feb. 3 7:00 pm, Hilton Speaker: T.J. Barlow Topic: Merger Mania Business Career Fair 1987 Corporate Booths Tuesday, February 3rd Army & Air Force Exchange Service Chubb & Son Color Tile Super Mart Commonwealth Savings Conviser-Miller Curtis Mathes Dillard’s of San Antonio and Forth Worth FirstCity Bank of Houston Foley’s HEB Foods & Drugs Home Depot InterFirst Bank of Austin J.C. Penny Co. Joske’sof Texas The Kroger Company Luby’s Cafeterias Marshall Fields Mervyn’s Neiman-Marcus Palais Royal Payless Cash ways Inc. Touche Ross Randall’s Food Markets Safeway Stores Inc. State Farm Insurance Co. Tom Thumb-Page Toys ‘R’ Us VALIC Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Zale Corporation Brookshire Grocery Co. CONOCO NAP DOW Chemical, Marketing DOW Chemical, Comptroller Ernst & Whinney Peterson & Co. Seidman & Seidman Tennessee Gas Transmission Co. Tenneco Oil INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SYMPOSIUM Tuesday, February 3 9:30 am Middle East FRAN 352 11:00 am Latin America - International Finance BLOC 120 11:00 am Latin America - International Finance BLOC 120 1:00-2:00 pm International Business Reception BLOC 316 (MBA Lounge) 2:00 pm Europe & Soviet Bloc ZACH 128C