Drug Dilemmas Essay

Read Case 5.2 on pp. 226- 228 – Drug Dilemmas. (Of course, you must read Chapter 5 prior to reading the case 🙂 Chapter 5 is very interesting in many respects. We need to consider whether corporations have social responsibilities and whether they have moral responsibilities in addition to making profits. You can see it’s a difficult balance to attain. Go to pages 202-203 to read about â€Å"Corporate Moral Agency† and the 2010 Supreme Court ruling giving corporations First Amendment rights. As you know, the First Amendment gives us, among other rights, the freedom of speech. Although corporations had limited â€Å"personhood† rights prior to the 2010 decision, now they have rights indistinguishable from individual citizens. Justice Roberts believes that â€Å"a corporation, just like an individual, has many diverse interests†¦indistinguishable from the individual who owns them.† Now, perhaps we need to reevaluate the responsibilities that accompany the rights given to corporations. If a corporation has rights equal to a living human person, then what responsibilities accompany such important rights? Here are some ideas we should be addressing in this forum: 1. Given the nature of their product, do pharmaceutical companies have ethical responsibilities that other corporations don’t have? In your view, are the large U.S. drug companies good corporate citizens? (Hint: Remember Chapter 2 and the Kantian good will, do no harm, always promote good, categorical imperative, or the utilitarian view of the greatest good for everyone involved.) 2. Assess the motivations of drug companies that do their testing overseas. Do you think test subjects are being exploited? Under what circumstances, if any, are companies morally justified in testing overseas? 3. Finally, do drug companies have an obligation to make new drugs available to patients who were involved in their development in the U.S. or overseas? No, I don’t feel that pharmaceutical companies have ethical respnsiblilities that other corporation don’t have. The reason I feel like this is because pharmaceutical companies have the ability to conduct research and save money and by while conducting their research overseas they avoid any restreiction of the FDA. That when you can go to Kantian good will, do no harm, allways promot good categorical imperative or utilitarian view of the greatest good for everyone involved. To use Kantian again, people are being used as guinea pigs, because when using patients in studies and not being able to contin;ue to help them after the study is not ethical to me. I do think that by tesing overseas the subject is being exploited because the help is not continueouly. They have the ability to test overseas circumvents Let’s engage in this fascinating topic using your knowledge you have gained thus far. The discussions will be grated according to this scale: Very good, 10 points: student demonstrates full understanding of the reading material and application of the material and moral theories to this case. Good, 8-9 points: student demonstrates basic understanding of the reading material and application of the material and moral theories to this case. Fair, 6-7 points: student demonstrates partial understanding of the material, but provides some important insights.