The assigned theme for my group was “Regulation,” and here is the issue we decided to write about:

Regulation – what is the role of regulation? Who is responsible?

The Revolving Door: FDA and the Monsanto Company
Link: http://ivn.us/2013/02/11/the-revolving-door-fda-and-the-monsanto-company/

Several senior members of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and private-sector company, Monsanto, a producer of agricultural biotechnology, have recently come under regulatory scrutiny in response to allegations of collusion. Among the FDA officials accused are Michael R. Taylor, current deputy commissioner of the Office of Foods and formerly Vice President of Public Policy at Monsanto, and Margaret Miller, a former Monsanto scientist who is currently the director of the Office of New Animal Drugs.  Regulators cite possible conflicts of interests as Mr. Taylor worked as a consultant for Monsanto on the legal implications of developing a bovine growth hormone intended to be safe for human consumption called rBGH. He later became one of the main authorities in the FDA in writing the rBGH labeling guidelines. In retaliations to the allegations of a revolving door, Monsanto Company claims that regulatory positions in the FDA and positions held at biotech firms often overlap on skillsets and thus it is natural for employees to move between both jobs.

The issue highlighted in this article is the inherent conflict of interest based on relationships between the FDA and Monsanto. Whether because of personal connections or shared skillsets, it seems experience in the private-sector is common among regulators. However, these experiences may bring along biases that undermine the process as well.

The article sheds light on the conflict of interests that the FDA, the primary regulator in the U.S., faces in its employment decisions. We’ve learned that it is extremely difficult to stay unbiased when a regulating agency hires from the industry it is itself trying to regulate. The article raises concerns on FDA’s hiring practices, which can impact their policies and decision making as well.

A Typical New Zealand Cat

Let’s take a step back for a second. Does the government have the power to control species, and perhaps more importantly, should they? This has occurred in the past, but it should be noted that Morgan’s plan doesn’t call for an all out cat killfest-instead, it suggests that the cat population be controlled and monitored. Given that feral cats are blamed for the majority of bird kills in New Zealand, it makes sense that Morgan’s plan emphasizes the spaying and neutering of cats. Some opponents to Morgan’s plan however cite that nature should be allowed to take its course. Unfortunately, over 30 bird species in New Zealand have gone extinct already, and many more are endangered due to the presence of imported cats. It seems to be a fair compromise for New Zealanders to make to preserve the biodiversity that makes New Zealand so special. But maybe that’s just because I’m a dog person.

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Join us in West Duke 103 for snacks and conversation Monday, February 18^th from 3:30 until 5pm. No RSVP is necessary; this event is free and open to everyone.

“Yes!”

That is according to a regional court ruling in Cologne, Germany, last spring. This case arose after the circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy led to medical complications. The doctor who had performed the operation was taken to court and the court ruled that the boy’s “fundamental right to bodily integrity” had been violated. This ruling caused a lot of hue and cry among Muslims and Jews since they viewed it as an affront to their religious freedom. Although German lawmakers eventually passed a legislation that ensures that parents have a right to have their boys circumcised, this controversy touches on a lot of raw nerves. It is clear that while activists against female circumcision in most countries easily get their arguments across to the targeted societies, intactivistshave a hard time getting theirs across.

I find this particular case to be very interesting for many reasons. Beyond its medical benefits, circumcision means many things to different societies. For Jews and Muslims, circumcision is of great religious significance and has been practiced by these societies since time immemorial. For those African societies that practice it, circumcision is an important rite of passage that signifies a transition from childhood to adulthood. Some American and European societies also practice circumcision; and they too have their own reasons for doing so.

When social/religious practices conflict with personal rights/state laws, which one should take precedence? Does a boy born into a Jewish family have a right not to be circumcised? Obviously, an eight-day old boy cannot exercise such a right, so someone, usually the parent, assumes the responsibility. What happens then when the said boy later decides to renounce their religious beliefs? Or when he decides that the slight loss of sexual sensitivity as a result of circumcision is a big deal for him? Obviously, he cannot reverse the procedure. Could he then possibly sue the parents and the hospital for doing that to him? Or the state for allowing the parents to do ‘such grievous harm’ to his body?

Another twist to the circumcision issue is when national laws or beliefs conflict with the practices of one particular society within the country. Do the majority get to decide for the minority whether they get to keep a distinct part of their culture? While there exists grounds for arguing whether the German court was right in some sense, it is doubtful whether we can say the same about the guys who did this!

The German case has another dimension to it beyond that of the merits/demerits or circumcision and religious/personal rights. The fact that Germany has a long and tragic history of anti-Semitism immediately throws the other arguments out the window. While it is true that in Germany, circumcision is “unfamiliar to the general public, even to most lawmakers”, it is very important to think about the message such a ruling sent to the world about how Germans (or their judiciary) feel about minority groups in their society. To the court, it might have been a straightforward case of what the law allows and doesn’t, but it sure did appear otherwise to the world.

- “Oh, I STINFed that class. Had to study for orgo.”
- “Can I see your p-set? I don’t have time to do it.”
- “First time I’ve written a paper without Adderall!”

Pressures are high, and so we cut corners.

But why would students cheat for classes that “don’t count?” The online course company, Coursera, reported dozens of instances of plagiarism in a sci-fi fantasy course attended by 39,000 students.

The class (and all classes offered through Coursera) is free, peer-graded, and carries no academic credit, except a certificate of achievement. Fun fact: Duke Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong teaches the largest Coursera course — over 180,000 are enrolled.

So, why did the students cheat?

An article by The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that many instances of plagiarism could be attributed to the various cultural background of the students. In countries such as China and Uganda, where I have taught, this seems plausible. Watching students study English by copying passages of a textbook over and over, it seems logical to me that they may lift sentences off Wikipedia or another author for a for an essay.

Nevertheless, confusion about what constitutes plagiarism can’t be the sole causal factor. Perhaps its also the unrelenting strive to “succeed” and the fear of failure. Even though Coursera is ungraded and open to the public, some of the students who voluntarily enroll may be similarly motivated as Duke Students. Thus, cutting corners may be a means to “achieve” and “succeed” in front of their peers.

So, does it matter?

At Duke, cheating has consequences for both the person and his or her peers. Curves are ruined, grades skewed. Plagiarizing on Coursera on the other hand, carries little academic consequence.

Given that students enroll for free, papers are peer-graded, and there is no academic credit, besides a certificate of completion, does it make sense to punish cheaters? What really is at stake?

I believe the answer is yes. Cheating is a categorical wrong in an academic setting. Imagine enrolling in the sci-fi class to seek intellectual fulfillment (or accomplishment), only to find yourself reading paper after paper of the synopsis of Frankenstein from Wikipedia.

Although we think of higher education as an outputs-oriented institution (think research, degrees, etc), it’s also a process as well. Avoiding the process of learning kills the meaning of education, especially in a “purer” learning experience such as Coursera where academic accreditation is not likely the end objective.

Coursera’s mission is to first and foremost foster a vibrant intellectual community. So while cheating doesn’t “count” in terms of “As, Bs, and Cs,” it certainly matters to the students and the future of the program. Granted, it’s silly to expect a “class” of 180,000 engaged, intellectually curious students. Nevertheless, plagiarism is certainly preventable, and worth preventing.

For lifelong football fans, myself included, this might be a shocking question. Perhaps it seems like something only those in high academics would debate. But, with the recent death of Junior Seau, the ethicality of football has been front and center. For those of you who don’t follow the sports world, Junior Seau was a linebacker who played most famously with the San Diego Chargers, becoming a sports icon in the San Diego area. Seau retired in 2010, after playing since high school. In 2012, he committed suicide at age 43. Later, it was revealed that Seau suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of chronic brain damage that has been discovered in other NFL players who died, as well. For those who knew Seau, they say the last few months of his life were marked with abnormal behavior. Just this month, the Seau family sued the NFL over the brain injuries he sustained during his career as a linebacker.

My first reaction to hearing about Seau’s tragic suicide was probably similar to many others who followed the story. Though terribly sad, Seau chose to play football and knew the injuries were a risk. Sure, the NFL could have provided more medical and psychological help to its players once they retired, but it doesn’t seem like we can hold them responsible for his death, right? But, then I started reading more and more about the perils of professional football.

In 2010 Malcolm Gladwell penned what has since become a rather famous op-ed in the New Yorker comparing football to dog fighting. Gladwell recounted the story dozens of former NFL and college players who are, or were, suffering from brain injuries. Line players can suffer up to 1,000 hits in the head in just one season. All these head injuries seem to have a real and scary effect on the players. Seau’s suicide wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last. In 2006, Andre Waters, a defensive back, shot himself; Owen Thomas, a defensive end and former UPenn captain, hung himself; retired safety Dave Duerson shot himself in 2011; and former safety Ray Easterling shot himself just a week before Seau did. This is not an isolated incident.

But, football players choose to play football. They are never forced to play, and in fact few who desire to play at the highest levels achieve it. Moreover, they’re getting paid a pretty good sum of money, so that makes up for possible injuries and risk…right? The flip side of this free will argument is that football is, as BuzzFeed writer Kevin Lincoln wrote, “the contemporary equivalent of gladiatorial combat…killing young men slowly…our loyalty condones this and makes it not only acceptable but wildly profitable.”

Do both these arguments have merit? Certainly, no one is ever forced to play, but the cult of adoration surrounding football creates a whirlwind that becomes hard to stop. Perhaps most alarming is that these dangerous hits don’t start at the college level, or even high school. It starts in elementary school with Pop Warner. Moreover, it’s not as if the trauma of multiple hits to the head begins when a player actually makes it into professional football. It begins all the way back in elementary school and slowly builds. College athletes aren’t even paid for the risks they are taking. Should we really let children play a game we know to be dangerous and have potentially life-altering effects? And, football hits have gotten more severe over time as players get faster and bigger. Even President Obama shared some concerns about this in a recent interview, saying that although the NFL players are getting paid, “as we start thinking about the pipeline, Pop Warner, high school, college, I want to make sure we are doing everything we can to make the sport safer.”

Moreover, why isn’t the NFL doing more to help the current players and those entering the game at a young age. Rather than address the physical and psychological traumas of football, the NFL constantly finds ways to obfuscate and ignore the issue. It will be interesting to see what their reaction to the Seau family suit will be

But, even if the NFL were more open with their players about the potentially behavior-altering, traumatic nature of football, what else could they do? Short of banning football or capping how long players can play (which seems unlikely given the extraordinary pay incentives and loyal fanbase), as long as people keep watching football, football will still be played. So, do we have an ethical imperative to stop watching football? Should we demand real change in the NFL’s policies and incentive system in order to protect the players? Are we contributing to the disturbingly long litany of former NFL players who have committed suicide or been seriously affected by brain injuries?

It’s hard for me to address these questions. I have always loved football. I’ve watched games with my dad since I can remember. I have many good memories of Duke Football game days, Super Bowl parties, and Friday night games in high school. It’s not something that’s easy for me to come to terms with—yet, I can’t deny how troubling I find all the evidence mounted up against the NFL. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that yesterday I was thinking about a lot more than what kind of wings I should get for my Super Bowl party.  

Normally, when we buy items at a store, there is no indication of how, where, and under what conditions the product was made. Some of us may not care how products are made, but even for those who do want to be ethical consumers, it can be difficult to do so. This may be for a number of reasons including the higher cost of ethically made goods, the cynicism that we cannot make a difference, and the lack of information available to us. Shana Starobin’s Good Question, “What should we eat?” gives excellent insight into the challenges that consumers face in being aware and capable of eating, or shopping, ethically.

Imagine if every product came with a letter similar to this one, detailing the ethical or unethical practices that went into making the product. The letter, if found to be legitimate, certainly details worrisome labor practices in China. The note reads:  “People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer (punishment), beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month).” There was also a desperate plea for readers to pass the letter onto the World Human Rights Organization. Although this is not a real organization, the shopper passed the letter onto the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is currently investigating the case.

What obligations does the shopper now have? Will she and should she stop purchasing these products?

For the next few months, she may check regularly to see what country and conditions different products are made in. Yet, she will quickly realize that much of this information is hard to find. Unlike medicines and tobacco products, our everyday purchases do not come with warning labels telling us the dangers created by the products themselves. Imagine what the world might look like, if this was not the case. You might stop yourself from buying Chris Brown CD’s if it had a label that read “WARNING: Do not buy this album! This man beats women.”

In the modern global market, goods are typically assembled in multiple countries with differing laws. Global corporations do not have any legal obligation to detail their labor practices to the public, nor do most people take the time to investigate for themselves. Given this information asymmetry, we often continue to make purchases without second thought of what effect they may be having for laborers in other parts of the world.

Even if this incident opens our eyes to unethical practices, will it change the way consumers and corporations act? If US consumers resolve to boycott products made in China (which would be nearly impossible), we will just be purchasing alternatives manufactured by sweatshops in India, Indonesia, or the Philippines. There may not be better alternatives. Furthermore, a boycott of Chinese goods could complicate global markets, harming American and Chinese laborers.

Maybe consumer boycotts are actually ineffective in the larger scheme of things, and it is better for us to pressure governments and advocate for change that way.  Or maybe the reason the laborers wrote to this woman, is because they know that consumers can do something to change the situation. As everyday shoppers, we may not know how to influence macroeconomic and government policies, but our consumer purchasing power may be our way to make a difference.

If I buy products made from Chinese sweatshops, does that not make me at least somewhat responsible for the state that these laborers are in? It is much easier to convince ourselves that these issues are out of our control, but I wonder if they are actually entirely determined by what our hands put into our shopping carts.

What do you think our responsibility as consumers is and how should we respond to this plea for help?

In less than three weeks, Cameron will be awash with bobbing blobs of blue: a stampede of hopping feet vertically propels faces encrusted with paint. Behold the enduring war cry: “GO TO HELL CAROLINA, GO TO HELL!” And golly, we feel great banishing our neighbors to the infernal pits. We gleefully rejoice when our team’s foul goes unnoticed. A twisted Tarheell ankle wrings out hoots of delight from the Crazies, even as the player’s face writhes in anguish.

Such is the ethics of parochialism: the practice of prioritizing the happiness of a select few over the happiness of the many.

For those not familiar with Cameron Crazies, check out this video of parochialism in action:

This communal frenzy is not morally bankrupt. There are three reasons why a good person could, or even must, have a parochial moral compass.

First and foremost, a good person has to be a person. As people, we thrive on our social relations, be it the narrative of an imagined community, such as America or Duke, or the biological ties which tether a father’s affection to his toddler. We cannot be shorn of special obligations. Caring for a select group of people who are an integral, inextricable part of ourselves can be construed as ethical self-regarding.

Next, what constitutes the goodness of a good person? Goodness cannot be divorced from what it means to be a person. Nourishing the social identities we have either chosen or been bestowed with forces trade offs. A dollar spent on pediatric care could have provided Malaria vaccines that would have preserved more quality/disability-adjusted life years. However, being good involves being parochially other-regarding, selectively diverting our limited time, money, and affections to those who help us meaningfully flourish as a social being.

Finally, a healthy dose of parochialism can help us make decisions. A person cannot digest all necessary information to make a utility-maximising decision in every circumstance. Thus, parochialism helps us choose and lends clarity to the consequences of ethically-knotted decisions.

But note the caveat: “a healthy dose.” Dragged to the extremes, parochialism can be unbridled racism or a callous disregard for people considered the alien “other.” The idea of a person as a social being also expands the horizons of one’s moral considerations. As we bump, rub shoulders with, and converse with the “other”, more people trickle into our social life. However, come the 13th of February, the Grand Canyon between two shades of blue remains vituperatively, and quite ethically, profound.

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Jing Song Ng (T’13) is a recently graduated Public Policy and Cultural Anthropology double major. At Duke, Jing Song was a dedicated member of Duke Debate and wrote a column for The Chronicle, “Jingapore Says.”

A Florida state representative, Ritch Workman, is pushing a campaign to lift the ban on “dwarf tossing.” The strange activity is it exactly what it sounds like, and (not surprisingly) often takes place in bars or other events involving alcoholic libations. In this activity, dwarves wear some sort of padded clothing, usually with Velcro, and are then thrown (or “tossed”), usually onto a mattress or similar surface coated in Velcro. It may come as no surprise that dwarf tossing is nearly universally banned, both in America and the world.

The idea of dwarf tossing is certainly not appealing to the wide majority of people, and Workman’s proposal has garnered considerable media attention, even getting picked up (and duly mocked) by Stephen Colbert. But, what may surprise you, however, is that Rep. Workman is not the only one who has proposed lifting the ban on this bizarre activity. For example, a French dwarf appealed the ban all the way to the UN in 2002, claiming that the ban violated his economic freedoms and human rights. His appeal was unsuccessful.

When asked why Workman was pushing for the overturn of this ban, he said in a local newspaper that he is “on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people” and that dwarf tossing is “an example of Big Brother government.” Workman has gone out of his way to call dwarf tossing “repulsive and stupid,” yet he still doesn’t believe the government has the right to ban it.

Despite the initial shock that dwarf tossing causes, perhaps Workman does have a point. Does the government have the right to ban activities that are clearly “repulsive” because they believe them to be bad for people, or society? What implications would a successful repeal of dwarf tossing have on other government policies? Based off Workman’s argument is it within the government’s prerogative to ban certain drugs, or even prostitution? Doesn’t banning prostitution cut off the economic freedom of prostitutes, just as Workman claims dwarf tossing infringes on the freedoms of dwarves?

What do you think? Should the ban on dwarf tossing be lifted? Is Workman being outrageous, or does he have a real point to make about the role of government? Does the government have a right to ban seemingly “unethical” activities? What about ones that aren’t so bizarre…like driving without a seatbelt? Engaging in high risk behavior? Eating fatty food? Where can we draw the line between healthy paternalism and an overstep of the governments authority?