Response to Casey Peacock's Organs for Sale

In Casey's blog about selling organs she does a great job explaining the debate that arises about selling organs.  She explains multiple sides of the issue from different perspectives.  First she mentions that from the sellers point of view selling organs makes logical and economical sense.  She compares selling plasma to selling an organ which is an interesting perspective.  She then explains the other side of the issue, the side of the buyers.  The buyers would be forced to pay extremely high prices in order to save their lives.  This would mean that many people wouldn't be able to afford to save their lives and it raises ethical issues.  Is it fair that only the wealthy can afford to buy organs?  Casey links the article Sell Organs to Save Lives to her blog.  I find both the article and Casey's blog very informative and thought provoking.  I think that I agree with Casey's idea of the sale of organs being ethically wrong.  I feel like we can't give the right to live a price tag.  I also believe that the sale of organs would create a lot of new unforeseen problems and corruption in the health care system.  Casey's blog can be found at http://cpeacocklsc100f09.blogspot.com/.

Technorati Search: Autism

After searching Technorati for awhile I finally found a blog that interested me.  The blog is written by Jennifer Bush and is titled, "Study Claims Children Can Recover From Autism".  This blog interested me because I did my research paper on autism and I didn't find any research that supported this idea.  I wanted to find out more about the possibility of being able to recover from autism and picked this article.  This blog has been active since November 16, 2010, so it is only a week or so old.  This is Jennifer Bush's first blog, and she posted it because she has a son that has autism and wanted to raise awareness.  She linked two different websites to her post, and also included a picture in her post.  After reading Jennifer's  blog I found that she seemed very educated in her post.  She talked about the article and autism in an intelligent, but yet easy to understand way.  Her blog differed from a research paper in that she used a more informal perspective of writing, mentioning her own views and also her sons story.  I found the blog very informative, but the title was a little misleading.  As Jennifer mentions, the idea of autism being curable is false.  Children with autism may be able to improve their skills and learning ability, but the biology remains unchanged.  She explains that her sons brain works differently than a normal brain, and probably always will.  Here is the blog if you are interested in checking it out for yourself. Study Claims Children can Recover from Autism

Self Evaluation

After watching the video of my demonstration speech it is easy to see what I did well, but also and more important, the things I could of improved on and didn’t do so well.  I thought my overall presentation went well, but I feel like there were a lot of things I could’ve did better.  While it’s easy to look back at my speech and critique it, I also realize that at the time I was very nervous and that was easy to see. 

I will start off by saying some things that I thought I did well during my speech.  The first thing that I thought I did well was preparing for my speech.  I had note cards made and I had practiced my speech several times.  I thought I dressed well for the presentation, wearing appropriate clothes for my speech topic.  The second thing I thought I did well in my speech is that I made good eye contact with the audience.  Even though I used note cards at times I maintained eye contact with the audience for the majority of my speech.  The final thing I did well in the speech is I thought I had clear steps that were easy to understand while I was showing how to tie a tie.

So while I thought I did pretty well overall, there are three main things I think I can improve on.  I felt like I got off topic a couple of times and rambled on about stuff that wasn’t important to the speech.  This not only was boring to the audience, it also made my speech go way over the five minute mark.  I also thought that I repeated a lot of the same information and at times had a loss of words.  This was most likely because I was nervous, but could have been prevented if I would’ve practiced my speech in front of other people.  The third thing I feel I could have done better is to have made a catchy and easy phrase to help learn how to tie a tie. 

While it is easy to look back at my speech and judge it, I feel like I did pretty well on it.  There are defiantly things I can fix and grow on for next time, but also try to keep the good things I did. 

My speech video

Blog #3 Organs for Sale

While breakthroughs in science have allowed scientists to grow organs from stem cells, it still remains highly controversial.  This brings us back to organ donations as the only way for a person to receive an organ that literally could mean the difference from life and death.  But what about the organ donors, is it fair that they don’t receive some kind of compensation for their organs?  Should there be a set price for an organ, or should organs be auctioned off to the highest bidder?   The idea of selling organs is highly controversial and outlawed in the United States.  I am against the idea of an individual having a right to sell their organs.  I think that giving people the right to sell their organs will create a magnitude of problems including only wealthy individuals being able to receive organ donations, as well as people in poverty selling parts of their body they need just to make a quick buck.  I believe that everyone should have the right to receive an organ, and it shouldn’t be reserved for just the wealthy that can afford it. 

After reading the article Sell Organs to Save Lives my opinion on selling organs has not changed.  While I understand that people have the right to do what they want with their bodies, I don’t think anyone has the right to sell their organs.  The author of this article claims that allowing people to sell their organs could help reduce the backlog.  While this might be somewhat true, I believe that the price of an organ would be far too great for most people in today’s economy to afford.  I believe that the selling of organs would mean that only the wealthy could afford to receive organ transplants.  I also believe that many people who would have donated their organs would not want them to be sold.  This point is pointed out in the article, and shows that the selling of organs does not automatically equal a greater supply of organs. 

Rebecca Skloot Blog

Rebecca was introduced by Biddy Martin, and started off by giving a summary of her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  She read several passages from the book, and talked about their significance.  Rebecca shared stories about her research and her relationship with the Lacks family, particularly Debera, Henrietta's daughter.  She explained that while writing this story she wanted to maintain a neutral and unbiased position and that she wanted to keep herself out of the story.  However, because she became so close to the Lacks family, she had to include herself in the book as a character, because she had played an important role to the family.  i found it interesting to learn about Rebecca's interaction with Henrietta's family, and also the doctors and researchers that were on the other side.  Rebecca explained that many of the researchers using HeLa cells didn't know where they actually originated from, and some of the researchers were even lied to about where HeLa cells originated.  I also found it interesting that many of the researchers were fascinated by the truth of the HeLa cells, but that no one knows why Henrietta's cells are immortal. 

Ethics and Medicine: Embryonic Stem Cells

The ability to grow and develop organs that can be received by any person is an incredible medical feat.  This feat is only possible with the use of embryonic stem cells.  Stem cells have an incredible capability of developing and reproducing into any type of human cell.  They are found in embryos of humans, about a week after fertilization.  The cells can duplicate indefinitely, giving them the capability to produce entire organs that are free of receptor cells.  Receptor cells are basically ID tags on organs that lead to the rejection of organs during transplants.  With no receptor cells on stem cell grown organs there is very little chance for rejection of the organ in the patient.  It is this versatility that makes stem cells so valuable. 

While some people see stem cells as an incredible medical opportunity to save thousands of lives, there are ethical issues that have been raised.  The retrieval of stem cells from the embryo comes at a costly price, the death of the fertilized embryo.  This is where the debate comes in; is it moral right to kill a fertilized embryo that would develop into a human being, in order to grow an organ that would potentially save another person’s life.  Many people would say no, that to kill one potential human being to save another cannot be justified.  These people view the fertilized embryo as a human life, and the death of the embryo as murder.  Other people don’t think that the fertilized embryo should be considered a human life if it is just an embryo in a scientific lab.  But at what point is an embryo or a fetus considered a human life, and does it matter if it’s in a test tube in some research lab, or in the womb of a mother?  This conflict has gained national attention and has been heavily debated for years now.  Both sides are well represented, and appear to be at a stale mate.

Here are two websites, one in support of embryonic stem cell, and one against it.

For Embryonic Stem Cells

Against Embryonic Stem Cells

I think that the pro life, against stem cell research proves to be the most compelling.  I think that the article is well written, and does a good job comparing the medical and ethical debate.

Challenges of TILOHL

                I think it is incredibly important that Henrietta Lack’s story is shared with the public.  It’s important that the public learns about Henrietta and her family, but also becomes informed about the problems with research and consent in the medical field.  Just from reading the short synapse I couldn’t help but feel bad for Henrietta’s family and the treatment of African American patients at that time.   This book will without a doubt stir up emotion and debate across our campus and country on several different issues.  I think that this book will help bring light to the problems with the medical research community and the multibillion dollar companies that invest in them.  The issues in this book are prevalent to students in almost all fields and majors, and the debates will help encourage further thought and research. 

                Because of the broad audience that Rebecca Skloot is writing for in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks the book covers a variety of topics and issues.  This makes the book appeal to a much larger audience, but also makes it hard for the author to make sure everyone can understand the main points and concepts.  Since it’s not just written for medical students, or even college students, Skloot must find a way of relaying the important topics in a simple yet concise way.  She also faces the challenge of making it interesting for the higher level readers such as medical students. 

                As a reader I predict facing challenges of not being biased, and trying to understand both sides of the issues.  When reading a good authors work it is often easy to be persuaded by their points and not research and formulate your own opinions.  Throughout this book I will try to fight the temptation of joining a particular side on an issue until I’ve heard both sides' arguments.