Research paper: A research topic in the history of health care ethics will be chosen in consultation with the instructor. Suggestions will be provided in class by the instructor. Your essay should be...

Running Head: HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE ETHICS    1
HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE ETHICS         3
RESEARCH PAPER
HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE ETHICS FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE PRESENT— HLST 4020 3.0
[CHOSEN TOPIC: A HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE ETHICS AND EXPERIMENTATION ON ANIMALS]
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
History of Medical Profession and Healthcare in association with Ethics    3
Healthcare and Drug Experimentation    5
Animal Experimentation – Alternate to the Human Experimentation    5
Ethical Issues regarding Animal Experimentation    6
Concept of 3Rs    7
Lab Procedure and Environment Safety    8
Use of Protected Animals for Experimentation    8
Fear of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)    9
Regulations    9
Conclusion    10
References    12
Introduction
Medical profession has always been considered as a sacred profession in the society not from only today but also from a very long period of time. Sir William Osler, one of the four founding professors of John Hopkins Hospital, was once asked to comment on the ethics of medical profession. He stated that the practicing medicine can never be a business and human beings cannot be traded as if they are a product. It is so because the human heart deals with the emotions of human beings, which must control their actions (Reddy & Mythri, 2016). Healthcare industry has existed in this world since the existence of human. Evidences regarding the existence of medicines and healthcare has been found from the 5th century from the Hippocratic Oath written in ancient Greece. Suśruta-saṃhitā, the oldest surviving ancient Indian manuscript that provides information regarding medical treaties and is said to be the foundation stone of Ayurveda.
History of Medical Profession and Healthcare in association with Ethics
Ethics has always been associated with any kind of human activity because they always reflects the negative side of an activity or a profession. From the past 60 years, ethics has reshaped the course of medical profession, which cu
ent medical professionals do not even realize. Medical profession in different geographical regions had different implications because it was performed in a different manner. As informed by Monamy (2017), in order to justify this statement with an example, history presents ample information regarding eastern countries such as India, Japan, China and their reliance on natural he
s for the treatment purposes. In other words, unlike western countries who had always been an appreciator and promoter of chemical products and antibiotics, eastern countries based their healthcare system much around the natural he
s and their study is called as ‘Ayurveda’.
Considering very ancient period, information regarding healthcare and medical procedures is mentioned in some of ancient manuscripts such as Suśruta-saṃhitā. However, information regarding their ethics is not there. As indicated by Reddy and Mythri (2016), history of healthcare ethics is known to be associated ‘Hippocratic Oath’ of 5th century BC but it is also noted that these ethics were dynamic and varied according to the numerous ancient civilizations existing at that time such as in case of Indian Oath of Initiation, 7th century AD. However, ancient period does provide enough information regarding professional and evolution of healthcare but it does not provide information regarding ethical code of conduct associated with healthcare (Nuffield Bioethics, 2019). Since, it was somewhere around 18th century when the ethical perspective related to medical profession was presented.
It was in about the 18th century when Thomas Percival started some publications and mentioned the moral authority and independence in ethical reasoning with respect to physicians. The publications were reflecting the good and the harm that medical profession was performing to the society at that time. As informed by Epstein and Turner (2015), in 1847, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted its first code of ethics, which was largely based on Percival’s work. The four principles of healthcare ethics were—
Non-maleficence – This principle abides the healthcare professional to cause no harm intentionally or unintentionally to the victim, while performing medical procedures.
Beneficence – This principle simply states that there should not be any intentional harm caused to the victim. However, if unintentionally the victim dies and their organs can save more lives, it will not be considered inappropriate.
Autonomy – This principle states that there is no harm in keeping full medical information as a secret from the patient if the professional believes that patient is not ready to handle that information.
Justice – Every individual should be treated alike; medical profession does not differentiate any individual on the bases of any cast, color or race (Govind, 2013)
Healthcare and Drug Experimentation
With the advancement in medical and healthcare field, new drugs originate every passing day and every new drug requires testing. Since, these drugs are meant for human application, so they require a human model for testing procedures also and this arises ethical issues. As mentioned by Elliott (2016), there was a time when all the medical trials were performed directly on humans that is in 1960s and one of the biggest example of this can be presented by the discovery of vaccine by Edwards Jenner.
He performed his study on an 8-year-old boy and concluded that individual who already had cowpox are immunized to small pox. At that time, that is in 17th century, there was no ethical code of conduct for the healthcare industry that existed hence, Jenner’s...