Not So Modern Medicine

The three articles we read as a class this week all hit upon the issues that arise when we take medicine across borders. In some ways, this is a new phenomenon, possible only because of advances in transportation and communication, but in many ways it is much older. 

All three articles relate the modern medical occurrences they are describing back to some older, historical example. Scheper-Hughes's article "The Global Traffic in Human Organs" mentions how many rumors of organ stealing, "are part of a universal class of popular culture dating back to at least medieval Europe,"(Scheper-Hughes 202). In a similar manner, Roberts and Scheper-Hughes treat Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, where the vampire leaves his rural castle for London, seeking a fresh supply of blood, as the original medical migration. The theme of these seemingly modern procedures having ties to a more unscientific past continues in Song's article, "Biotech Pilgrims and the Transnational Quest for Stem Cell Cures". Here the author relates the contemporary practice of US citizens traveling to China for Stem Cell treatments to religious pilgrimages throughout history. She ties one particular patient, Tim, to the Puritans who fled English persecution to America, comparing how the Puritans viewed the Church of England’s repression to Tim’s take on President George W. Bush stopping stem cell research in the US.

It seemed peculiar to me that all three pieces felt some sort of need to place these experiences of modern medicine back to older traditions. To me, as a reader, it served as a reminder that what is happening with all of these issues discussed in the articles (the organ trade, “medical tourism”, transfer of medical practices like drug rehabilitation, biotech pilgrimages) aren’t as novel as they seem. Rather they are a part of a historical pattern of reaction and resistance to medical advancement. Part of that advancement involves many mistakes on the part of the government and medical field when introducing these practices. In the organ trade, socioeconomic divisions and corruption of countries prevent what Scheper-Hughes presents as a more ethical organ donating system from developing. Asthma researchers in Baltimore made the mistake of thinking their research on asthma in African-Americans could translate to the Afro-Caribbean population of Barbados. Surely mistakes will be made in the implementation of stem cell treatments, which brings a whole host of moral quandaries with it.

But it is also a mistake to fear the advent of new biotechnology because of potential mistakes. This is made most clear in Song’s article, where she mentions how fears of stem cell technology result in government legislation preventing research in the US. The impact of this is that the citizens who could most benefit from the application of the research feel betrayed by their own government and are forced to travel at great expense to China for treatment. Medical advancements are never implemented perfectly at first, but fearing progress comes with its own price.