Dear reader,
Today we visited the children's hospital of Cincinnati and went through several laboratories there. Afterwards we went to Walgreen's, a general purpose pharmacy. Walgreen's has a great offer of medicine for the daily use like for example Ibuprofen. To me it is more a drug store than a pharmacy, since the biggest part of the store is filled with stuff like razor-blades, waterguns and creams, things you won't find in a "normal" pharmacy.
At the children's hospital the possibilites of medical care are not comparable, since there they have tests about DNA, chromosomes and all problems concerning that.
This difference mirrors itself in the prices. The tests in the hospital go from 1000 up to 3000$. In contrast to that, a package of Ibuprofen costs 6$ at Walgreen's.
In my mind the question concerning personal autonomy in deciding about medical treatment depends on the person. Someone with heavy psychological problems should definately not decide about his treatment, since he might think wrong about things. A person whos' mind is completely normal should be able to decide what sort of treatment he or she gets. As far as I can say the circumstances of each patient influence this topic and it is hard to say something about it in general.
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Do you think either the genetics lab or the pharmacy at Walgreens pose any ethical problems? For example, the idea of genetic testing, or else the issue of self-diagnoses and treatment?
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