Animal sources of common medicines

Why doctors should inform their patients where the medicines comes from

My many readers will know - from my many blogs (one Yahoo! 360 blog, recently closed by Yahoo! - had 1.3 million readers) that (a) I am NOT A FAN OF NOMINAL RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION - (b) nor am I supportive of arbitrary defections of any kind to lower moral standards.

An infrequently recurring question on vegetarian medical discussion lists in including those on topical medical concerns, where some clinicians and medical trained professionals are signed up, is animal ingredients in common medications. Some great servants of the vegetarians community like the Michaels - Dr. Michael Greger and Dr. Michael Klaper, have tried to help us steer clear of common over-the-counter preparations with animal ingredients, as have some pro-animal organizations (not only PETA, but others, too). You'll noted that, to the discredit of both vegetarians and presumptive vegetarians who are clinicians who ought to know the products AND our ethical and moral scruples about animal byproducts, many clinicians - including nominal Hindus, nominal Jains, nominal Adventists, and others - have failed to engage in pro-active HELP and service to the vegetarian communities, though they MAY be uniquely qualified to do so. Is it laziness or a misshapen sense that their NEW 'higher calling' is professional loyalty, a a jingoistic chauvinism to their professional colleagues, even when the profession is doing the wrong thing.

Let's get one thing clear: NO product of ANY kind should have ANY kind of animal ingredient or byproduct in it.

Therefore, no MEDICAL product of ANY kind should have ANY kind of animal ingredient or byproduct in it.

There's wide-ranging ignorance of this moral truth, but medical and health professionals who are NOT ignorant have even less to say in their defense when they err than have those whose moral laziness merely REFLECTS the social backgrounds from which they come.

In a column in the New York Times this week, Randy Cohen fields a question from an anaesthetist.

Should the doctor ask a devoutly religious patient whether he minds that his anticoagulant (heparin) is derived from pigs?

In his reply, Randy Cohen suggests that the doctrine of informed consent requires the doctor to consider the non-medical preferences of the patient and to make sure Muslims, Jews, and vegetarians (like us) know where medicine to be used in their treatment is coming from.

That's a second best (or third best, or not good) standard at best, but that's what Randy Cohen offers. It's a standard that's been around, has been widely accepted by medical ethicists and others in our culture, and seems to work with little additional thought. After all, clinicians should have a laboratory 'sense of things' that would include routinely understanding the chemical nature of stuffs, stuffs used in clinical treatment.

Are you with us so far? Good!

So Randy Cohen, in his New York Times article a week or so ago, suggests that the doctor's role includes a duty to provide whatever information patients need in order to make decisions about, decide, and effectively manage or control their care. But some doubt that it is a doctor's responsibilityto take into account what they call "preferences" (because they don't clearly understand the moral status of animals d they dismissive discount or deny their personhood.

These deniers claim that the doctors' role is too greatly extended.

Dominic Wilkinson of the University of Oxford, on August 24, 2009, posed this scenario:

"Imagine a vegan who takes particular exception to drugs that have been tested in higher order primates. Is the doctor expected to ask about all possible preferences and provide corresponding advice about treatments that conform to these? If so, this seems to be unreasonably demanding."

Briton Wikinson goes on to distinguish what he terms "the normative force of different claims about information-giving" (in other words, different nuances have different moral claims and intellectual legitimacy):

"There is a difference between

1. what would be good for the doctor to do, and
2. what we should expect the doctor to do, and
3. what we should sanction the doctor if they don't do?

If your doctor knows that you are a devout religious adherent, and that you may have an objection to a medical product that they know contains animal products, the doctor should inform you that the drug she is about to prescribe is derived from pigs. It would be good for them do so (level 1 above)."

So far, so good.

"And if you ask your doctor - does this drug contain animal products then the doctor should (stronger - probably level 2, maybe 3) find out about the drug and let you know."

Here's where we can take issue:

"Whether we should expect them (2) if you haven't asked or sanction them (3) if they didn't tell you is less clear to me.

We might also note that there is another side to responsibility when it comes to personal preferences for different treatments. If your preference is idiosyncratic or unusual you, the patient, probably have a responsibility to find out which potential treatments may contain animal products, as well as to let your doctor know that you really don't want animal products (or blood products etc). On the other hand if the preference is very common within the population perhaps the onus should be on the doctor."

Finally, Wilkinson quibbles further:

"As for the relevance of all of this for orthodox judaism, Randy Cohen notes that since Heparin is administered subcutaneously rather than orally it is apparently not proscribed."

Thinking here of being carried away kicking and screaming while refusing ill-intentioned treatment, I rephrase German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller just a little:

First they came for the Muslims, but I wasn't a Muslim...

Then they came for the Orthodox Jews, but I wasn't an Orthodox Jew...

Then they can for the ethical vegans, and I wasn't an ethical vegan...

Then they came for me, kicking and screaming (and what did they want to do surreptitiously to MY body, about which I would object?)...

Let's put it this way:

Ethicists, particularly bioethicists should be thankful (or, if they don't believe in thankfulness, count themselves fortunate) to HAVE observant Muslims, Orthodox Jews, careful SDAs, self-caring body-owning feminists, and us ethical vegans BECAUSE we help to clarify the case that humans DO object to anyone's surreptitiously sneaking objectionable methods into their treatment and materials and substances into our bodies - in the same way we object to the USDA's approval of GMOs, irradiation, chemicalized agriculture, and more.

We should be THANKFUL that the woman's movement in the West and around the world has joined this chorus of these serious moral objections, and we should WELCOME American Republicanswho are yelling at the top of their lungs:

"Just one moment! What's going to be IN this treatment? What's going to be IN this health care program?"

We psychophysical unities of every stripe, brand, variety, background, persuasion, and pattern of human dignity demand no less than a transparent and open discussion of all these issues, even if it means that some well-intentioned measures can't be ramrodding into law quite so quickly.

Those who KNOW there is objection should be especially eager to fund research into NON-objectionable methods of caring for and preserving human health and for restoring it when illness and disease emerge (and for reducing and eliminating pain and providing proper care and treatment when that's the limit of suitable medical intervention).

We all know that the status quo in healthcare is not good enough, but it's more than access to currently-available treatments and their funding that's a mess. What is also all messed up is the WAY our society thinks about health and healthcare. I can give Ted Kennedy credit for noting that we ought to be paying doctors for keeping patients well, but I only puzzle whether or not we have trained these physicians to KEEP people well (when so much emphasis is placed on listening to complaints and treating post-diagnosisconditions.

Why not listyen to us? Of coruse, they ARE listening to us, and if it flies and flies far, they can claim it as their own.

And who should we be to com,plain if they DO develop treatment modalities that are agree of animal exploitation and abuse, focus first on primary prevention, emphasize a strong role for individual responsibility for health andsocial support for enabling that personal responsibility (safe and suitable exercise facilities in all workplace regions and residential areas, designing urban and suburban areas for exercise, and eliminating all subsidies for animal agriculture and making fresh produce afforcable and safe; shifting emphasis from high tech medicine to wards the low-hanging fruit of primary prevention, etc.). After all, what does it mean sociologically to be a servant of the greater public good, the good of all society? It means to serve wisely and effectively; it does NOT mean taking the credit. In the long run, the HEALTH of the people is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than the healthcare delivery of the people UNLESS that healthcare delivery PREVENTS the problems in the first place.

It is BETTER to have NOT suffered at all than to have suffered ravaging illness and disease, then, after costly treatment funded socially, to have recuperated (at least temporarily).

In the search for cost savings, Peter Orszag should be exploring primary prevention. Shouldn't we all.

But don't put those animal ingredients in MY treatment protocols.

And the lowest common denominator, and thus the cheapest path for pharmaceutical companies, is to make ALL medicaments FREE of all animal ingredients and byproducts.