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Developing and Delivering New Medical Technologies: Issues Beyond Access
Author(s) -
Juengst Eric T.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1993.tb00928.x
Subject(s) - psychosocial , bioethics , health technology , emerging technologies , engineering ethics , ethical issues , psychology , risk analysis (engineering) , medicine , business , internet privacy , political science , computer science , engineering , health care , psychotherapist , law , artificial intelligence
The articles in this issue illuminate psychosocial issues raised by the development and delivery of new medical technologies. Five kinds of questions surface repeatedly: questions about a technology's purpose(s), the value judgments it presumes, the locus of its control, the external forces that drive it, and its long‐term social risks. These questions take the discussion of new technologies beyond the challenge of improving access to their benefits. They also raise issues that will become increasingly important as the capabilities of medical technology expand. For example, they suggest research questions for three other emerging medical technologies: use of biosynthetic growth hormone to treat short stature in hormonally normal children, genetic tests on fetal cells from the circulating maternal blood, and development of clinically reliable biomarkers of the aging process. Part Three of this issue provides a theoretical basis for encouraging psychosocial perspectives in this arena, by illustrating the central role that “robust,” multifaceted analysis has come to play within the methods of bioethics.