Assignment: A right to Experimental Drugs?

Assignment: A right to Experimental Drugs?

Question Description
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assignment criteria:

Competency 1: Articulate ethical issues in health care.

Explain how the principle of informed consent is relevant to these issues. Explain the costs and benefits of offering unapproved experimental drugs to patients.

Identify relevant ethical theories and moral principles.

Articulate arguments using examples for and against offering pre-approved drugs to wider pools of patients.

Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and respectful of the diversity, dignity, and integrity of others and is consistent with health care professionals.

Exhibit proficiency in clear and effective academic writing skills.

In Chapter 2 of your course text, you learned about the rigorous process of clinical trials that tests new drugs before being approved for treatment. The process, which involves three distinct phases of testing, takes a great deal of time, with some trials lasting many years. Before approval, patients not part of a clinical trial have limited or no access to experimental drugs, even though these drugs could be helpful and potentially save their lives. The “Case Presentation” on pages 67–68 discusses the Abigail Alliance, one of the groups pushing for greater patient access to drugs still in the experimental stage. In recent years, the FDA has made it somewhat easier to receive treatment with experimental drugs, but according to advocacy groups such as the Abigail Alliance, there are still too many restrictions. As the text explains, defenders of the FDA policy point out that making unproven, experimental drugs widely available to patients has a consequence—a pool of fewer patients available to participate in clinical trials that establish whether or not the drug is truly effective and safe.

Early stages of research on a drug sometimes suggest that the drug could be effective in treating a certain disease. But without going through the full clinical trial process, doctors do not know if the drug is effective at all. The vast majority of experimental drugs turn out to be completely ineffective, and the drug might have very dangerous side effects.

Assignment Description

Do patients with no other treatment options have a moral right to unproven drugs? Write a paper that explains and defends your view on this issue. In addition to reviewing your textbook, you are encouraged to locate additional resources in the Capella library, your public library, or authoritative online sites to provide additional support for your viewpoint. Be sure to weave and cite the resources throughout your work. In your paper, address the following points:

Identify relevant ethical theories and moral principles.

Explain how the principle of informed consent is relevant to the issue.

Explain the costs and benefits of making unproven, unapproved experimental drugs widely available to patients. Consider the costs and benefits not only to the individual patients who take these drugs but also potential costs and benefits to other patients.

Explain arguments using examples for and against offering pre-approved drugs to wider pools of patients.

Support your view using ethical theories or moral principles (or both) that you find most relevant to the issue.

Submission Requirements

Your paper should meet the following requirements:

Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style and formatting guidelines.

Length: 2–3 typed, double-spaced pages.

Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.