BioTech and Global Health

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Following abuses such as World War II Nazi medical experiments on prisoners, and four decades of not treating men of color for syphilis at Tuskegee (1932-1972), in the early 1970’s, a government commission established guidelines for human subject research (Belmont, 1974-1979). This “bedside model” emphasizing autonomous (self-directed) patient consent became a quest for public agreement about procedures of sound clinical decision-making in the face of discrete uses or withholding/withdrawals of technology. These helped decisions about organ donation and neonatal intensive care (exploring rules such as justice, benefice and nonmalficence or “do no harm”). This pursuit energized a new discipline of “Bioethics” for nearly half a century, pioneered by distinguished colleagues at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Center of Bioethics. Such guidelines are now being enhanced by bigger social issues in biotechnology and global health such as the role of social and environmental contexts in enhancing the negative effects of disease interactions (“syndemics” such as diabetes-depression and poverty). These are now under investigation by nationally renowned Georgetown scholars in Global Health (colleague Prof. Mendenhall). In addition, this course explores benefits in patient care and public health that come from information engineering applied to the field of health care (health informatics) that have helped promote a century of improvements in sanitation and wellness (e.g. reproductive, maternal and children’s health) and technological gains in diagnosis and treatment of diseases; sanitation halted typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. Vaccinations stopped smallpox and polio. Prevention and intervention have helped with diabetes, cancers, heart disease, neurogenerative diseases such as depression, HIV/AIDS and Opioid ependencies. Such knowledge reduces premature mortality (years of life lost), disability (YLD), summarized as disability adjusted life years (DALY, According to the World Health Organization, WHO). This course surveys these issues and enables understanding intersections among “Biotechnology” and “Global Health”. Related resources for our course include materials from GU’s School of Nursing, Medical School and Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.