Cargando…
Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments
Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate chang...
Autor principal: | |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2014
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646888/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26085444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40504-014-0008-5 |
_version_ | 1782400996991827968 |
---|---|
author | Timmermann, Cristian |
author_facet | Timmermann, Cristian |
author_sort | Timmermann, Cristian |
collection | PubMed |
description | Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate change is increasingly becoming a major challenge for food security and we can anticipate that hunger caused by crop damages will become much more common. Since many of the challenges humanity faced in the past were overcome by inventive solutions coming from the life sciences, we are compelled to reconsider how we incentivize science and technology development so that those in need can benefit more broadly from scientific research. There is a huge portion of the world population that is in urgent need for medicines to combat diseases that are currently neglected by the scientific community and could immensely benefit from agricultural research that specifically targets their environmental conditions. At the same time efforts have to be made to make the fruits of current and future research more widely accessible. These changes would have to be backed by a range of moral arguments to attract people with diverging notions of global justice. This article explores the main ethical theories used to demand a greater share in the benefits from scientific progress for the poor. Since life sciences bring about a number of special concerns, a short list of conflictive issues is also offered. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4646888 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46468882015-11-25 Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments Timmermann, Cristian Life Sci Soc Policy Research Article Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate change is increasingly becoming a major challenge for food security and we can anticipate that hunger caused by crop damages will become much more common. Since many of the challenges humanity faced in the past were overcome by inventive solutions coming from the life sciences, we are compelled to reconsider how we incentivize science and technology development so that those in need can benefit more broadly from scientific research. There is a huge portion of the world population that is in urgent need for medicines to combat diseases that are currently neglected by the scientific community and could immensely benefit from agricultural research that specifically targets their environmental conditions. At the same time efforts have to be made to make the fruits of current and future research more widely accessible. These changes would have to be backed by a range of moral arguments to attract people with diverging notions of global justice. This article explores the main ethical theories used to demand a greater share in the benefits from scientific progress for the poor. Since life sciences bring about a number of special concerns, a short list of conflictive issues is also offered. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2014-04-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4646888/ /pubmed/26085444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40504-014-0008-5 Text en © Timmermann; licensee Springer 2014 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Timmermann, Cristian Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title | Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title_full | Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title_fullStr | Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title_full_unstemmed | Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title_short | Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
title_sort | limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646888/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26085444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40504-014-0008-5 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT timmermanncristian limitingandfacilitatingaccesstoinnovationsinmedicineandagricultureabriefexpositionoftheethicalarguments |