■
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
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Dr. David Gross uses a diagram to discuss the development of the artificial heart.
Photo by Marcena Fadal
Prof discusses artificial heart decisions
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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