Amidst all the furore about antibiotics we seem to be allowing a major
*development* to pass us by without even a comment as to it's
desirability.
A government-supervised programme testing appendices and tonsils for new
variant CJD *will* start.
It is hailed as creating *unprecedented diagnostic possibilities* and
making it possible to *diagnose patients before they are aware they are
infected*
There is no treatment for this disease.
The inevitable end is death - an undignified humiliating death.
Would you want to know?
Those who followed recent threads may recall I have polycystic kidneys.
My big mistake was finding out I had it before it affected me.
Now this is an illness for which there is a treatment, advances are made
in leaps and bounds and although death from renal failure is inevitable
it is not necessarily undignified or humiliating.
But still there are enormous psychological effects of knowing one has it
aswell as the impossibility of life, sickness or health insurance.
Apparently if the testing programme produces positive results it will
become proactive with tests before surgery....
To whose benefit would this be?
Surely this is not ethical?
I, for one, would strongly urge my patients to resist such testing.
We should not underestimate the damage that can be done by gaining
knowledge of the future.
--
Katie
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|