The Ethics Of Lab Testing

Genetic testing has brought about many changes in the way many couples look at conceiving and raising families. Through genetic testing you are able to screen for the increased chance that a fetus may have one of many congenital disorders, or even identify gene changes that are responsible for a disease that has already been diagnosed (Genetic Testing, March 2015). Unfortunately genetic testing is not always exact, in some cases giving parents false negatives or false positive results. Even if the results are accurate, there is the burden of knowledge once you know the results indicate a genetic abnormality such as Down’s syndrome. While caring for a 2 year old male patient with developmental delays and anotia, I learned that genetic testing had been started but never completed on the child. Genetic testing could help to identify genetic disorders that led to the child’s developmental delays and possible future disorders that may develop. The ethical dilemma I will be discussing to the ANA Ethical dilemma of the impact of informed consent of genetic testing on children for adult onset diseases and disorders.

The Goal of the Human Genome Project is to obtain genetic mapping information and to determine the complete sequence of all human DNA by the year of 2005. The project started in 1990 and 180 million dollars are being spent on it annually. This adds up to a total of over 2 billion dollars for the 15 year budget. Of this 2 billion dollars budgeted, 5% is spent annually on the ethical, legal and social issues. This report focused on some of these issues.

A clinical laboratory is defined as any facility where materials derived from the human body are examined for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of disease or the assessment of health. Standards applied to

Thousands of people voluntarily enroll in clinical drug trials every year. They are putting their health and safety at risk by participating in a drug trial. One would think they would be doing this to promote medical advancement, but in all actuality, it is for the high dollar amounts they receive for compensation. People that frequently enroll in drug trials are often called “guinea pigs.” The monetary amount people are paid can go as high seventy-five hundred dollars. The more invasive the procedure is the higher the compensation. These “Guinea pigs” are required to pay taxes on the money they do make. (Elliott, 2008)

“Lots of people talk to animals…Not very many listen, though…That’s the problem”(Ben Hoffman). The controversy of animal testing is phenomenal; it always has been. I remember dissecting animals throughout my years of school in the "name of science". It was only until recently that I started questioning the government 's methods to teach us. We dissected a dog shark in my oceanography class last year. There had to been at least 80 dead sharks in about four different buckets; that was when it crossed the line. I understood a lamb eye or something, but breeding sharks in captivity just so they can be killed? Animal testing is wrong in every way to me.

The preanalytical errors increases health care costs and decreases the patient satisfaction. The laboratory errors that happen at any stage of the total testing process have influence on quality of laboratory services. Any errors that happen during this total testing process will affect the patient care that also includes unnecessary recollection of samples, delay in reporting, misdiagnosis and treatment by the clinician. Although the errors can happen at any stage of the total testing process, preanalytical errors accounts for highest percentage (70%). The consequences associated with analytical errors are significantly reduced by the use of modern laboratory instruments. But pre analytical phase is still prone to more errors due to its complexity and different stages that involved within and outside laboratory. The inaccurate reporting of results due to preanalytical errors leads to unnecessary investigations and creating an additional burden to the healthcare system (Kaushik, & Green, 2014). According to Green (2013) the healthcare economist created a model to quantify the costs associated with laboratory errors and poor sample quality. It is based on operating costs, number of beds, test volume, number of rejected samples, instrument problems and the frequency of inaccurate results reported by laboratory and their impacts. As per this model

Working in the field of medical testing, it is important to know that there will be a health risk when working on lab equipment, due to many hazardous chemical, many scientist risk their lives to find the right substance to find a cure. Each test has its own indication and contraindication. Tests being performed are expected to have no benefit for the individual being tested. Instead, the results may be useful for the establishment of statistics in order to improve health care for other individuals. Patients may give informed consent to undergo medical tests that will benefit other people. It is not just classify only to use for diseases but to find a relevant used of treatments. What is medical testing? What are some source of topic that relates to it? Medical testing is a kind of

In this article very effectively described outcome of growing and developing of genomic testing in today society. It showed how far medicine has gone and how much benefits it gives populations. Genomic testing also deliver undesirable finding which creates ethical dilemma in nursing. Because nursing role is advocate for participant in genomic testing, he or she should protect autonomy and beneficence of participants. In the same time taking full advantage of benefits of the research and benefit society. This ethical dilemma not easy to solve, where so many benefits and harms could be done through incidental genetic finding. This article very well described how nurse should act to protect any misconception between participant and researcher in the testing in proper ethical way. It also effectively describe which guidelines and criteria should be use to balance between the best interest of the individual and society. These guidelines are critical social theory and balance between benefits to harm. it described autonomy of

Human testing ethics has been a prominent topic in science. There’s an extent to human testing. If it’s just a plain old test online asking basic questions about their everyday life, that fits into the category of OK. If it’s an experiment involving orphans who are scolded for every little flaw and deformity in their speech for six months. That’s past the line. I’m astonished that that even was thought of. You can’t do that in the “name of science.” There’s been numerous accounts of scandals in the topic of human testing. Gas chamber experiments involving 210,000 civilians, Tuskegee studies, and unnecessary experiments on children and adults. If you wouldn’t test it on yourself then you shouldn’t be conducting that experiment. Many of the issues

Clinical laboratories are reaching the 6 Sigma performance methodology in the analytical stage of a particular test. However, regardless of the commercialization, physicians are still ordering the incorrect tests during the pre-analytical stage of laboratory testing. In turn, a major portion of physicians are then misinterpreting the incorrect tests ordered in the post-analytical stage of testing (Wolf, n.d.). Another point, studies performed

In the diagnostic laboratories, different operation methods and evaluation standards would result in the limitations of the experimental results, thus, accreditation is important for diagnostic laboratories to manage the quality, resources, quality assurance and other pre examination, examination and post examination operations. It is important having a unified standard in the laboratory field to meet the needs and requirement of all the users. (2) The Clinical Pathology Accreditation (CPA) is a laboratory accreditation service, which is a part of UK Accreditation Service (UKAS), provides the strict guidelines of all laboratory procedures (including external quality assessment and internal quality control) and personal training. The laboratory must apply annually to ensure that they maintained the standards.

I would like to begin my argument by noting that in the United States strict regulations are in place to protect clinical trial participants and to prevent harmful and potentially disastrous clinical trial results. Before participating in a trial all trial participants are given an informed consent form that presents the key facts of the study; all participants also maintain the right to withdraw from the study at any time. According to the National Institute of Health “if researchers learn that a treatment harms you, you'll be removed from the study (NHLBI).” I am not saying that all patients are aware of their rights, or that all clinical trials abide by the rules, but that in general American federal law heavily protects clinical trial participants. However America’s stringent drug safeguards do not exist everywhere, furthermore in America and elsewhere pharmaceuticals are a highly profitable field, companies can find loopholes in regulations to push drugs onto the market faster often at the patient’s risk. This essay will focus mainly on the regulations

Imagine a life locked away in a cage with no form of control on your existence. It’s cold, dark, and you are scared. You don’t have a choice of what you eat, where you live, or how you are treated. You are unsure if it is day or night or what will happen to you next. You are locked away in a prison cell and you committed no crime. This is the life of a laboratory animal. Animal testing is the use of animals for scientific research purposes and experiments. It can be used for the findings of cures and medicines to testing new drugs, to understanding the behavioral psychology of the animals themselves. “Around fifty to one hundred million vertebrate animals, ranging from fish to primates, are used in experiments each year” (Lloyd). There are

First, what is a clinical laboratory? A clinical laboratory is a laboratory with several departments that perform test to help provide better information to the patient to provide them with a diagnosis, a treatment or even to prevent disease. So who oversee these labs? One of the monitoring agencies is American society of clinical laboratory science. They “assure reliable test results which contribute to the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of physiological and pathological conditions.” In 1988 The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988 was inputted. (CLIA ’88) This act has divided the clinical laboratory testing in to waved, moderately complex, and highly complex categories’. Waved testing is a simple and accurate test. Some examples would be pregnancy test, blood glucose test, and also the urine dipstick test. Moderately complex testing is manual procedures with minimal steps and minimal preparation. Highly complex testing is including all laboratory testing. There are many positions in

Every year, a multitude of animals of all different shapes, sizes, and species are taken from their homes. These animals are subjected to animal testing, the use of animals in order to gain control over the variables that affect our bodies behavior. People are taking these animals from their homes to research and study things that could easily be tested using alternate methods. So a very important question stands, why do corporations continue to test on animals? Due to its unethical nature, animal testing should no longer be practiced anywhere in the world.