Experimental medication-hope or threat?

A father was crying over the death of his daughter. She was only twenty-one years old when she found out that she had a unique illness called squamos cell carcinoma. The father and daughter sought for every type of medication, but none of those available at hospital could heal her deadly illness. Her last resort was using experimental medical treatment, cetuximab and gefitinib to name a few. However, unfortunately, these medicines were undergoing clinical trials at the moment and she didn’t meet the inclusion criteria to take part in the trial. A few months later, the daughter died in vein. Her name was Abigail Burroughs, whose father sued the FDA for her daughter’s death. And this incident aroused the voice arguing that terminally ill patients should be given the right to demand experimental medical treatment.

Like the example of Burroughs indicates, there are problems in the current system of medical treatment. Today, many people are diagnosed as ‘terminally ill’ patients, who are defined as patients that their diseases cannot be cured with current methods of treatment. What can these patients do? They don’t have much choice, but waiting for death. On this issue, Cary Gross, MD, says, “terminally ill cancer patients are often willing to try unproven treatments when standard therapies are either unavailable or have failed to work. However, many are ineligible for clinical trials, and drug access through compassionate-use programs can be procedurally difficult to secure. Thus, access to experimental compounds is extremely limited for many patients.” Change is urgent and important.

     Of course, there are some reasons why many people believe experimental medical treatment shouldn’t be given to patients. One of their biggest points is that experimental treatment, by its very definition of something being unproven to be safe, has a great possibility to be harmful to patients. They view experimental treatment as injecting an unidentified substance into any patient. However, such argument doesn’t stand. Clearly, introducing new drugs and medication isn’t simple even in the status quo. In the case of the U.S., the FDA strictly regulates researchers to undergo numerous times of animal experimentation before proceeding to further clinical trials. After thorough beforehand research, doctors will be providing treatments to patients. In other words, no mad scientist will be playing with the innocent patients.

     Also, this policy benefits medical science and technology as a whole. Once patients are allowed to access experimental treatments, there would be more cases of testing new medications, which will foster medical research. The current system of clinical trial is tedious and slow compared to this. Also, testing would be more productive and accurate since researchers get to test on actual patients like Abigail Burroughs, thus able to prove whether the medicine really attains the desired effects or not. Advance in medical science also leads to more benefits to the society. More medicine available means more lives saved. Therefore, experimental medication is beneficial for sure.

     The society doesn’t want any more unfortunate cases like Abigail Burroughs’s. Moreover, the government has responsibility to provide the best chance to live and the freedom of choice to its citizens. The new voice for experimental medication is upholding these values: saving lives and granting liberty. For the patients and for the society, terminally ill patients should be given the right to demand experimental treatment.

Response to "Spring" in Kim Ki Duk's Film

      Even today, fear exists between me and my parents. Since very young, I remember that my parents have been strict and firm when they came to child education. When I did wrong, and especially when I intentionally did so, I was scolded a lot. Probably I cannot firmly declare that such punishments were so severe, since I don’t know how other parents taught their children. However, as far as I conceived as a young boy, I was afraid, frightened whenever I found out that I were to be punished.
     At this moment, I can remember the fact of being scolded a lot, but there are few anecdotes that flashed inside my head once I saw the video clip. In the short video, a little boy was punished by his master for being cruel to animals. It was rather drastic, since most teachers or parents probably would have simply told him not to do so. Instead, the monk does what the boy did to the animals, but this time, to the boy—tying up with a big stone. The boy cries in vain that he is sorry, both discovering the corpse of the snake and climbing up the mountain with the stone on his back. Through this punishment, the monk made the lesson clear,
     Similarly, I once acted really wrongfully and my parents gave severe punishments. I lied about my whereabouts after school. Trying to cover my fault going to the PC rooms without permission and wandering the streets until late, I told that I had group studies. What made my parents angrier was that I lied for three days in a row. On the third day, my mother called one of the boys that I “alleged” to study with. She was totally shocked. And I came home late.
     Literally, I was kicked out of home. My father said that he will never have a liar as a son. In the middle of the night, I shivered in cold, sitting on the stairs, and thought about what I did. At first thought, I felt my parents were being too harsh. Other kids were doing the same thing, but why only me? Though, looking back, I feel such disciplines guided me the right way, just as the monk taught the little boy in the film. Harsh yet effective education must be a bitter medicine that helps children in the future.

Chain writing: a bit absurd

A Colorful world
I never thought like that before. I always thought that my life is going to be boring. Still I am a student and I cannot deny that. Thinking of tomorrow, I can only imagine more tests and homework. Dreadful days continuously depressed me. And that is when I met him.
“David,” he introduced himself.
I didn’t reply, because he seemed so different from me. He had his hair dyed with bloody red color. He wore earrings and showed his pink chewing gum as he kept saying. He seemed rude and violent. I hoped he wouldn’t come any closer.
But as if my teacher was trying to torture me, his seat was right beside me. She was expecting David to be more like me, I guess. During math class, he asked me thousands of questions and I hated it. Mid-term was only a few days to go so I had to concentrate. But I didn’t want to be rude to him, so I answered very shortly. As I told him that I don’t play any sports, I don’t play any games except facebook Tetris and I don’t have any hobbies, he started to tell his stories.
“Dude, wanna know something ‘bout me? I used to have this real crazy, yet hot girlfriend. When I told her to break up, she was driven mad and almost killed me with the fork she was holding. Anyway, that’s my story, dude. Now tell me about yours, if you even have one.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never had any girlfriends, not even a ‘girl’ friend. But I couldn’t tell him that, especially when he seemed to be searching for every reason to mock me. So I decided to tell him the most dramatic, sentimental love story.
“Sure, I guess it was last year that I had a crush with this girl…”
Like that I told him my story, of course, a fabricated one. As more I came up with details, David’s face seemed to be filled with awe. He tried to hide his facial expression, but I could rather read that he was astonished. And at last he said, “Oh wow, you’re a real man.” So this is how I became colorful, a bit too much.

--> I guess this story really is 'ridiculous' ...