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Christopher Rabon Alicia Bolton English 101 21 November 2013 The More They Die The Better Things Get Throughout history the quest to prolong life has driven many people to extremes. No matter how much one may try there is always going to be a degree of danger in the medical field; and casualties are unfortunately inevitable when attempting to further the medical industry. Death is one of the most crucial learning experiences within medicine. In Steven Caseys The Atomic Chef he outlines several very real tragedies that have happened over the years. One particular event described in his book, which he labels as Safer Than Safe, details the death of hundreds of people from the early versions of Dr. Jonas Salks polio vaccines. Dr. Jonas Salk was one of the first pioneers in the medical industry to use dead viruses in vaccines in order for the patient to build up immunity and become resistant to the virus. Some early batches of his vaccine ended up spreading the virus; and evidently aided in the deaths of many people before it was discovered that one company made errors in manufacturing the vaccine. This event only further fueled the argument that a killed-virus vaccine was not adequate (Salk 1). Now many would see this as a tragedy that could have, and ultimately should have been avoided. However, this particular story caused extensive research into medical death and the benefits of it. Death constantly demands the ever improvement and understanding of medicine and of the human body. Every person on the planet should care that his or her death could ultimately aid generations to come. The issue though, is that too many people see death only in

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a negative aspect and look for someone to blame instead of realizing that, modern medicine cannot guarantee life and one should take comfort in knowing that the death of an individual is a learning experience that will allow the lives of many others to be saved. Some would argue that if death were to occur in the hands of a medical professional with all the advancements in medical technology that it is someones fault and the patient died for no suitable reason. While technology in the medical field has improved tremendously to reduce the amount of casualties, people fail to realize that death is an absolute in life and not always able to be prolonged even with modern medicine. Medical malpractice does occur where a doctor or surgeon has made a mistake and it has cost a patient his or her life, but the medical professional has to live with that and use it as fuel to ensure it is prevented from happening to anyone else. According to Learning from our mistakes Incident reporting by registered nurse and clinical risk manager at MPS Kate Taylor, We are all human and susceptible to error; at some point in our careers we will make mistakes. The key to good risk management is to ensure that we learn from our mistakes and review systems and processes to try to reduce similar events occurring again(Taylor). While malpractice is an awful thing to happen and the results are often fatal it still happens to this day to highly gifted physicians. The difference is that after making that error they learn from it and make sure actions are taken to prevent any further mishaps. The professionals in the medical industry hate the thought of losing a patient as much as a family member or friend hates the thought of loosing that loved one. While the professionals are attempting to save lives and help people they are required to be insured against malpractice due to the fact that some people blame them for the loss of his or her loved ones and sue the physician or hospital in retaliation. There was a survey in The

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Journal of the American Medical Association that asked why certain families were filing malpractice lawsuits. There were several reasons; some included advised by knowledgeable acquaintances (33% of respondents), recognized cover-up (24%), needed money (24%), recognized that their child would have no future (23%), needed information (20%), and decided to seek revenge or protect others from harm (19%). There is such a misconception amongst people that doctors or nurses should be infallible always and that medical care will always go the same perfected way as it did for someone else. There is a distinct portion of the survey suing because they either blame the physician or they are looking for the potential to receive monetary compensation. Some would argue putting this much pressure on physicians and researchers causes them to be more cautious with human life and learn more from each mistake made. However, with the constant fear of being sued and the requirement to understand malpractice and the legal aspects of it takes a physician or scientist away from focusing on further eliminating the mistakes that may have been made and furthering his or her field. Although some would like to blame every hiccup along the way on the physician it is truly the events that go wrong that allow the greatest growth and learning for these medical professionals. Death is such a prevalent event in the medical industry and so many people are looking to capitalize on the potential capital gain that death brings, that doctors are insured for massive amounts of money. The trend of insuring oneself against malpractice has increased over the past century, not only in the amount of doctors getting malpractice insurance, but also by the actual amount that they are insuring. Paul C. Weiler is a renowned professor at Harvard Law School, a prestigious Ivy League school known worldwide. He is more specifically the Henry J.

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Friendly Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His book Medical Malpractice on Trial further discusses the trends regarding the amount malpractice insurance changes over the years. According to the preface of Professor Weilers book it states nationally malpractice premiums had surged from just $60 million in 1960 to more than $7 billion by 1990 (Weiler ix). Within thirty years malpractice premiums became over one hundred and sixteen times higher than they were. People working to save lives and improve the health of others when possible are being forced to invest millions if not billions into insurance to combat the ever-present threat of being blamed and sued for the death of a patient. If less people would attempt to get a dollar from his or her doctor and more would understand that death is a reoccurring theme in life that one must accept then more focus could go into studying the cause of death and developing a plan to prevent future deaths. With that being said there are instances that the deaths of hundreds of people had to occur to develop organizations and medical supplies to save the lives of millions. Dr. Jonas Salk and the polio epidemic of the 1950s is one fine example of something that seems to be a terrible tragedy at first glance until you realize all the good that has come from it. Polio was spreading rapidly though out the entire world and the medical community was under immense pressure to come up with a solution. Dr. Salk had the brilliant idea to use a dead polio virus in his vaccine. Now what this would do is allow the body to recognize the polio virus and signal for anti-bodies to be made that would kill any new incoming polio viruses that may be contracted. This idea was proposed when medicine was still in a relatively early stage so there was no guarantee it would work. Salk researched polio for years before comfortably creating a vaccine that he would test. Salk desperately wanted to rid the world of the wretched disease that he

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had been researching so badly that he would even jeopardize his own life in the pursuit of a cure. It was said in the film Polio Pioneers that, two years after Salk had injected himself with the vaccine, the vaccine was ready to be given to the public(Modern Marvels: Polio Vaccine, Polio Pioneers). Due to the massive amounts of vaccinations required several manufacturers were hired to create batches of the vaccine to be distributed through out the country. This was a complex thing for most of the manufacturing companies to do back in the 1950s. There were detailed guidelines that explained the precise process of making this vaccine. After Cutter Laboratories got involved and decided to skip some corners things went none too smoothly for Salks vaccine due to some manufacturing errors. According to the eBook The Reader's Companion to American History SALK JONAS it states that the manufacturing errors occurred due to the Cutter Laboratorys failure to follow the correct procedures (Salk 1). The inability to follow correct procedures allowed batches with live polio viruses in them. Each company was under pressure to create enough vaccines in time for field trials that spanned the entire United States. It is said in Steven Caseys The Atomic Chef that, Cutters production output was to be injected into roughly ten percent of the 57 million people slated for inoculation in 1955(Casey 186). With that being said luckily not all of the 5.7 million people were exposed to the polio virus but a few thousand did die. Before this accidental exposure and the overall development of the vaccine polio was killing hundreds of people a day and there was no way to combat it. It is highly unfortunate that so many people died because of careless mistakes but due to the sacrifices those people made not only was a cure made for one of the deadliest diseases at the time but also stricter regulations and scrutiny went into the manufacturing of medical supplies.

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Keeping all of this in mind there were other instances in which the deaths of people occurred to ultimately better the medical field. Just fifty years before Salks famous polio vaccine and the Cutter Incident another positive change in the medical field would spawn from the unfortunate events that occurred in St. Louis, Missouri. Paul Offit is an established American pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases and he is known to be an expert on vaccines and immunities. In his eBook The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis it discusses how diphtheria broke out in St. Louis and what resulted due to the outbreak. The author starts by talking about the start of a federal agency by stating: The laboratory of biologics control, the tiny federal agency within the national institutes of health responsible for licensing vaccines, was born of a strange event that occurred in the early 1900s. In 1901 a diphtheria epidemic swept across St. Louis, Missouriduring the diphtheria outbreak in St. Louis, fiveyear-old Veronica Neill received a shot of diphtheria antitoxin. Soon she developed painful spasms of her face and throat, and on October 26 she diedfrom tetanus. (Offit 58) He starts off by mentioning that the laboratory of biologics control was developed as a positive measure to prevent any more events that could cause more people to die. Although this is an example dating back many years it still shows that if given the opportunity to learn from death than positive changes can be made. Although plenty of knowledge and innovations has been obtained through studying death, there will always be room for improvement. The deaths of loved ones should not only be

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seen to provoke anger or revenge toward the ones that helped and treated them. Death should inspire people to seek out new adventures. As finite as life is, death should be a joyous occasion that lessons are taken from. Sacrifices have been made throughout history to allow the world today to be as advanced as it is. Even though there are diseases, disasters, and tragedies that will take the lives of many people the important thing is to not lash out or get angry but learn from it and allow death to be the enlightening learning experience it can be for the betterment of mankind.

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Works Cited Casey, S. M. "Safer than Safe." The Atomic Chef: And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error. Santa Barbara, CA: Aegean Pub., 2006. 176-196. Print. Hickson, Gerald B., MD, Ellen W. Clayton, MD, Penny B. Githens, MS, and Frank A. Sloan, PhD. "Factors That Prompted Families to File Medical Malpractice Claims Following Perinatal Injuries." JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. The JAMA Network, 1992. Web. 04 Nov. 2013. <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=395670>. Modern Marvels: Polio Vaccine. "Polio Pioneers." Films Media Group, 1999. Films On Demand. Web. 03 November 2013. <http://storm.hgtc.edu:2048/login?url=http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid =3503&xtid=42887&loid=102195>. Offit, Paul A. The Cutter Incident:How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis. Yale UP, 2005. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 04 Nov. 2013. "SALK, JONAS." The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Credo Reference. Web. 4 Nov. 2013. Taylor, Kate. Learning from our mistakes Incident reporting Practice Nurse 43.10 (2013): 2427. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 18 October 2013. Weiler, Paul C. Medical Malpractice on Trial. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991. Print.