There is no real
controversy between the use of prosthetics and politics. The only issue that
slows down the release of prosthetics is the time it takes for the government
to approve the prosthetic to be distributed to the public. However, like all
medical treatments that is understandable. You wouldn’t want the FDA to release
a medicine that has detrimental side effects. Same goes for prosthetics; an
artificial limb may malfunction and do something harmful like uncontrollably
increase the grip when holding something delicate such as a baby or the battery
may be corrosive and may harm the user. Usually these issues are not a problem
for artificial limbs but as stated earlier in this blog prosthetics aren’t only
artificial limbs. Most prosthetics that take a long time to be approved by the
government usually require very invasive surgery like brain-computer implants
or artificial spinal nerve biofilm.
Another thing that
thwarts the release of a prosthetic to the general public is funding. Funding
is highly essential for prosthetics. Usually the development requires a lot of
money due to moving parts, development of miniaturized computers, animal
experiments, and human prototyping models before the actual human experiments.
In the case of an artificial limb, a limb may cost thousands of dollars. The
prototype must be developed and fine-tuned before through experimentation
before it may be made for human experimentation.
I couldn’t imagine
the public having an issue with the development of prosthetics. I would imagine
the only thought that would cross an individual’s mind when seeing a prosthetic
is a sense of curiosity of how the disability may have occurred or how cool the
prosthetic is. Besides the restoration of function to the prosthetic user I
believe patients psychologically feel a sense of relief their disability no
longer singles them out from the general public.
The way I see it: starting with just limbs, we will gradually be able to replace different parts of our body (if it hasn't happened already). The brain is the only thing that I think is irreplaceable. Although it's still a long way to go, eventually we will be able to have people with mechanical body parts, sort of like cyborgs (Robocop if you will) and that will potentially be a problem for us.
ReplyDeleteEssentially that is coming true. Prosthetic organs are not really a goal of scientists and doctors right now because of the recent experiments in stem cell programming to grow into organs that can be surgically substituted. I believe people that receive artificial body parts won't use it negatively.
DeleteI see this as the classic time versus safety question. Do we send out a prosthetic with the possibility of being defected or do we do test which will cause the release of the prosthetic to be delayed. It’s good that there are few political issues with prosthetics but if prosthetics become taboo, I feel like there will be some issues. For instance if prosthetics becomes better than natural limbs people may want to substitute their natural limbs for prosthetic ones. This would create a taboo situation but for now I think that the current politics to science relationship is fine.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is understandable that it would take the FDA some time to approve something which does have a lot of benefits, but could potentially be harmful if dysfunctions, as you explain with your examples. Since technology is heavily involved in making Prosthetic to work, I would imagine there would be a long term testing required to make sure the artificial limb doesn't dysfunction in an expected situation and potentially harm the user.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense that the government takes its time to test and make sure that these prosthetics are safe to be released to the public. As you mentioned, it should first be tested in case there is something wrong with it. I personally know a lady that got both of her knees replaced with prosthetics, I don’t know which kind, but I do know that it took her body about three months to accept the prosthetics, while waiting she was in constant pain. This happened years ago, they are probably more advanced by now.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it would take a long time for the the government to approve this, it can reduces a lot of risks if they take it slowly and run through multiple tests, especially when it involves the implant of chips in brains and such, because it has to do with implanting chips in brain a lot of risk factors can follow along, it's better to be safe than to be sorry.
ReplyDeleteI can clearly understand why it would take a long time for the government to approve these kinds of technologies. Not only there could be possible side effects for people but also malfunction of prosthetic can cause damages to other people too. I’m glad there is no controversy since the development of prosthetic parts can definitely improve many people’s lives. I think it would be the best if the government starts to fund for the prosthetic rehabilitation or the government starts to promote and make people more aware about this system, this way the cost won’t be skyrocketed when it becomes available to the public. I hope the technology becomes available to the public soon so many people can experience a better quality of life that science can bring to them.
ReplyDelete