There are numerous points of view that insist that the pharmaceutical companies creates more illness and disease than it cures or prevents. Well if we look at it logically, where is the profit or job security in preventing disease for the pharmacological industry. But this is not the only contributing factor to an increase in our diseased population. Pollution, industry, change in life style all contribute to the decrease in our health and happiness.
One of the increases that we have seen in the news lately has been the practice of organ transplants, specifically in the case of children and teens.
Not long ago there were two cases where children age 12 or younger were allowed by court order to be placed on "adult" lists for transplants. The rule about having 2 lists for organ needs is logical and biologically necessary. Children are still growing and do not have the size, capacity or internal space to receive adult organs, as in reverse, adults require organs that have finished developing and growing and are capable of sustaining adult life. These guidelines are rational, logical, and medically relevant to the acceptance of the new organ in the patient's body.
The conflict arises when the patient is in the gray area of being on the border of the child adult division. It is hard for the family when it is their loved one that is in need. When in this situation emotions become the primary driving force, sometimes at the expense of logic or reason or quality of the patient. In the two cases previously mentioned the families used the courts to impose their will on the medical establishment to move their children to the adult lists to increase their chances of receiving the much needed organs.
It would seem that having to go to court to allow examination and compromise within the individual cases is overkill. But this is a simple example of control combined with compliance instead of independent thinking and assessment by those members of the medical team that are closest to the situation and also the most informed. We can thank this issue on the insurance industry, but that is a whole other article.
Now we have another case in the news where a young man, 15 years old, was originally denied addition to the transplant list "due to his failure to comply" previously. Another words, he was not deemed acceptable to allow to grow into a full grown man, cause the "board" that makes the decisions for this Georgia Hospital, tells the future and knows what a person will become if allowed to live. This is a prime example of what is wrong with a lot of parts of society.
This is not a race issue, this is a human issue. We have limited our value to numbers and bottom lines and profit margins and investment returns as we can put dollar signs on them. We have lost the knowledge that a person's ideas or thoughts or actions or words are not just profit margins they are gifts to the whole world, their impact cannot be measured or logged in a ledger. We do not know what impact saying hello or shaking a hand or holding a door open or smiling at someone can have. The ripples of the smallest pebble will reach all shores of the ocean.
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