1AC
1AC
Plan: The United States should legalize the regulated sale of human organs in the
United States.
Advantage 1 - Exploitation
Lifting prohibition on organ sales solves the current crisis and saves thousands.
Becker and Elias Nobel Prize Winner 14 “Cash for Kidneys: The Case for a Market for Organs, There is a clear remedy for the growing shortage
of organ donors”,By GARY S. BECKER and JULIO J. ELIAS Updated Jan. 18, 2014 4:58 p.m. ET
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579322560004817176 Bio Mr. Becker is a Nobel Prize-winning professor of
economics at the University of Chicago and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Mr. Elias is an economics professor at the Universidad del
CEMA in Argentina. In
2012, 95,000 American men, women and children were on the waiting list for new
kidneys, the most commonly transplanted organ. Yet only about 16,500 kidney transplant operations were
performed that year. Taking into account the number of people who die while waiting for a transplant, this
implies an average wait of 4.5 years for a kidney transplant in the U.S. The situation is far worse than it
was just a decade ago, when nearly 54,000 people were on the waiting list, with an average wait of 2.9 years. For all the recent
attention devoted to the health-care overhaul, the long and growing waiting times for tens of thousands of individuals who
badly need organ transplants hasn't been addressed. Finding a way to increase the supply of organs would reduce wait
times and deaths, and it would greatly ease the suffering that many sick individuals now endure while they hope for a transplant. The
most effective change, we believe, would be to provide compensation to people who give their organs—
that is, we recommend establishing a market for organs. Organ transplants are one of the extraordinary developments of
modern science. They began in 1954 with a kidney transplant performed at Brigham & Women's hospital in Boston. But the practice only took
off in the 1970s with the development of immunosuppressive drugs that could prevent the rejection of transplanted organs. Since then, the
number of kidney and other organ transplants has grown rapidly, but not nearly as rapidly as the growth in the number of people with
defective organs who need transplants. The result has been longer and longer delays to receive organs. Many
of those waiting for
kidneys are on dialysis, and life expectancy while on dialysis isn't long. For example, people age 45 to 49 live,
on average, eight additional years if they remain on dialysis, but they live an additional 23 years if they
get a kidney transplant. That is why in 2012, almost 4,500 persons died while waiting for kidney
transplants. Although some of those waiting would have died anyway, the great majority died because they were
unable to replace their defective kidneys quickly enough. The toll on those waiting for kidneys and on their families is
enormous, from both greatly reduced life expectancy and the many hardships of being on dialysis. Most of those on dialysis cannot work, and
the annual cost of dialysis averages about $80,000. The total cost over the average 4.5-year waiting
period before receiving a kidney transplant is $350,000, which is much larger than the $150,000 cost of the
transplant itself. Individuals can live a normal life with only one kidney, so about 34% of all kidneys used in transplants come from live
donors. The majority of transplant kidneys come from parents, children, siblings and other relatives of those who need transplants. The rest
come from individuals who want to help those in need of transplants. In
recent years, kidney exchanges—in which pairs of
living would-be donors and recipients who prove incompatible look for another pair or pairs of donors and recipients who would
be compatible for transplants, cutting their wait time—have become more widespread. Although these exchanges have grown
rapidly in the U.S. since 2005, they still account for only 9% of live donations and just 3% of all kidney donations, including after-death
donations. The relatively minor role of exchanges in total donations
isn't an accident, because exchanges are really a form of barter,
and barter is always an inefficient way to arrange transactions. Exhortations and other efforts to encourage more organ donations
have failed to significantly close the large gap between supply and demand. For example, some countries use an implied consent approach, in
which organs from cadavers are assumed to be available for transplant unless, before death, individuals indicate that they don't want their
organs to be used. (The U.S. continues to use informed consent, requiring people to make an active declaration of their wish to donate.) In our
own highly preliminary study of a few countries—Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile and Denmark—that have made the shift to implied consent
from informed consent or vice versa, we found that the switch didn't lead to consistent changes in the number of transplant surgeries. Other
studies have found more positive effects from switching to implied consent, but none of the effects would be large enough to eliminate the
sizable shortfall in the supply of organs in the U.S. That shortfall isn't just an American problem. It exists in most other countries as well, even
when they use different methods to procure organs and have different cultures and traditions. Paying
donors for their organs
would finally eliminate the supply-demand gap. In particular, sufficient payment to kidney donors would increase the supply
of kidneys by a large percentage, without greatly increasing the total cost of a kidney transplant. We have estimated how much individuals
would need to be paid for kidneys to be willing to sell them for transplants. These estimates take account of the slight risk to donors from
transplant surgery, the number of weeks of work lost during the surgery and recovery periods, and the small risk of reduction in the quality of
life. Our conclusion is that a
very large number of both live and cadaveric kidney donations would be available
by paying about $15,000 for each kidney. That estimate isn't exact, and the true cost could be as high as $25,000 or as low as $5,000—but
even the high estimate wouldn't increase the total cost of kidney transplants by a large percentage. Few countries have ever allowed the open
purchase and sale of organs, but Iran permits the sale of kidneys by living donors. Scattered and incomplete evidence from Iran indicates that
the price of kidneys there is about $4,000 and that waiting times to get kidneys have been largely eliminated. Since Iran's per capita income is
one-quarter of that of the U.S., this evidence supports our $15,000 estimate. Other countries are also starting to think along these lines:
Singapore and Australia have recently introduced limited payments to live donors that compensate mainly for time lost from work. Since
the
number of kidneys available at a reasonable price would be far more than needed to close the gap
between the demand and supply of kidneys, there would no longer be any significant waiting time to get
a kidney transplant. The number of people on dialysis would decline dramatically, and deaths due to
long waits for a transplant would essentially disappear. Today, finding a compatible kidney isn't easy. There are four basic
blood types, and tissue matching is complex and involves the combination of six proteins. Blood and tissue type determine the chance that a
kidney will help a recipient in the long run. But
the sale of organs would result in a large supply of most kidney
types, and with large numbers of kidneys available, transplant surgeries could be arranged to suit the
health of recipients (and donors) because surgeons would be confident that compatible kidneys would be available. The system that
we're proposing would include payment to individuals who agree that their organs can be used after they
die. This is important because transplants for heart and lungs and most liver transplants only use organs from the deceased. Under a new
system, individuals would sell their organs "forward" (that is, for future use), with payment going to their heirs after their organs are harvested.
Relatives sometimes refuse to have organs used even when a deceased family member has explicitly requested it, and they would be more
inclined to honor such wishes if they received substantial compensation for their assent.
The massive shortage of organs in the United States is driving the underground organ
market.
Archer 13 Body Snatchers: Organ Harvesting For Profit Kidneys and other organs are selling to the highest bidder on the black market. Published on November 13, 2013 by Dale Archer, M.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201311/body-snatchersorgan-harvesting-profitRecently in China, a missing 6-year-old boy was found alone in a field, crying. Upon closer inspection, both eyes had been removed, presumably for the corneas. In 2012, a young African girl was kidnapped and brought to the UK for the sole purpose of harvesting
her organs. She was one of the lucky ones—rescued before she went under the knife. Authorities feel this is just the tip of the iceberg. This isn't just an international occurrence. Kendrick Johnson, a Georgia teen, died at school January 2013. The local sheriff quickly determined the death
was a freak accident, that he suffocated after getting stuck in a rolled up mat in the school gym. Johnson's parents however, could not—would not—accept that. Six months after his death, they obtained a court order to have the body exhumed for an independent autopsy. The
pathologist was stunned when he found the corpse stuffed with newspaper. The brain, heart, lungs and liver were missing. He also discovered Johnson's death was due to blunt force trauma to the right side of his neck. The FBI is now involved in this distur bing case with potentially
Black market organs are
being transplanted in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles at $150,000 a pop.
there are brokerfriendly" US hospitals, complete with surgeons who either don't know or don't care where the organs
come from.
shattering reverberations. Nancy Scheper-Hughes has spent over ten years studying the dark side of organ harvesting and trafficking which is driven by greedy middle men and desperate, wealthy recipients.
She reports
"
Organ donation is only possible if the organ in question has blood and oxygen flowing through it until the time of harvesting. A living donor can give a whole kidney, a portion of their liver, lung, intestine or pancreas. Otherwise, the donor must be declared
brain dead while circulation and oxygenation remain intact. Today, 120,771 people are waiting for an organ, and 18 will die every day while waiting. Just one donor has the ability to save up to 8 lives. Where there's a demand, there's a way. And for the wealthy money is no object when it
a black market is alive and well. Typically a broker will team up with a
funeral home director, forging consent forms and a death certificate to harvest human tissue before the
body is cremated or buried. Sometimes organs are harvested from a living victim for compensation. In
the worst case it involves kidnapping for the purpose of organ harvesting. Always at the end of the chain
is a wealthy recipient, willing to pay
. In others, organ
harvesting is tied to human trafficking. Children sold
are used for their organs. There's a
black market for hearts, lungs, and livers, but the kidney is the most sought after According to the W
H O
approximately 7,000 kidneys are illegally harvested annually by traffickers worldwide
The average buyer spends $150,000
while the average donor gets $5,000.
profits go the the middle men
In 2010 WHO estimated about 11,000 organs were obtained on the black market. WHO
also claims that an organ is sold every hour
There's an enormous demand for organs, and whenever there's gap
between supply and demand desperate buyers and desperate sellers will dictate a black market. Now
organized crime is involved,
heart is still beating. This is a multi-million dollar industry, and
it’s only
expected to get worse.
comes to a vitally needed body part. Organ donation is strictly regulated in the US, yet
big bucks with no questions asked. In some countries, impoverished villagers may sell an organ for several hundred dollars
into slavery or a life of sexual abuse
also
.
ealth
rganization,
orld
and the prices vary widely
by country.
(though prices in excess of $200,000 are common)
The big
and “organ brokers”. In the US 98,463 individuals are waiting for a kidney as of October 25, 2013. Of those, about half will die before they receive one. The profits are huge, and money is a temptation many
brokers and doctors just cannot resist.
of every day, 365/7. What is your kidney worth to you? A broker located in China openly advertised "Donate a kidney, buy a new iPad!" In addition, the donor would be
compensated $4,000 and it could be harvested quickly and easily in as little as 10 days.
sometimes leaving the poor victim without their organ and quite possibly without being paid. Even here in the U.S., there have been accusations (no proof) of allowing patients on life support to die in order to
remove the organs while the
as the wealth gap continues to widen,
Organ trafficking is a modern day form of slavery – the market is widespread and
growing
The Kubrick Theme. 2012 Human Trafficking is Modern Day Slavery,
http://fightslaverynow.org/why-fight-there-are-27-million-reasons/otherformsoftrafficking/organremoval/
Organ removal, while not as prevalent as sex and labor trafficking, is quite real and widespread. Those targeted are sometimes
killed or left for dead. More frequently poor and desperate people are lured by false promises. The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 7,000 kidneys are
illegally obtained by traffickers every year as demand outstrips the supply of organs legally available for transplant. A black market thrives as well in the trade of bones, blood and other body
tissues. This activity is listed in the United Nations’ Trafficking in Persons Protocol: Article 3(a)… Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other
forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. The inclusion of this form of exploitation into the Protocol is
intended to cover those situations where a person is exploited for the purposes of a trafficker obtaining profit in the ‘organ market’, and situations where a person is trafficked for the purpose
market forces drive supply and
demand; those in desperate need of an organ transplant will purchase an organ from those who are
desperately poor, or from ‘brokers’ who may have forcibly or deceptively obtained the organ. Kidneys
are generally supplied by live ‘donors’ in underdeveloped countries to developed ones. An article in the medical journal
Lancet reported: “…the circulation of kidneys followed established routes of capital from South to North, from
East to West, from poorer to more affluent bodies, from black and brown bodies to white ones and from
female to male or from poor, low status men to more affluent men. Women are rarely the recipients of
purchased organs anywhere in the world.” (Scheper-Hughes,Vol. 361, 10 May 2003)
of the removal of their organs and/or body parts for purposes of witchcraft or traditional medicine. In the former situation,
These practices dehumanize and oppress of millions of persons worldwide—a
collective moral responsibility exists to combat the systemic harms of organ trafficking
Shahinian, 2013 – Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, United Nations (Gulnara,
April 26, 2013, “Slavery must be recognised in all its guises,” The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/apr/26/slavery-recognised-allguises, Hensel)
I became the UN's first special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. Since then, I have
been asked time and again by government officials, businesspeople and NGOs not to use the word
"slavery" at all. I have been asked to change the name of my mandate and not speak out about what I have seen. They have asked
me to use other words instead – ones that don't carry the same meanings or implications.¶ ¶ Yet what
other word describes people who have been beaten mercilessly, shut indoors, made to work without
pay, sexually abused, poorly fed and threatened with more abuse against themselves and their family if
they attempt to leave? This is not just violence or exploitation. What describes the situation in which a
mother has no right over her child, or a father is forced to put down his own life – and those of his
family – as collateral, working for nothing to try to repay a debt that will never go away? These are the
forms of slavery that exist today.¶ ¶ Millions of people live in some form of enslavement. The exact numbers are
impossible to calculate. Modern slavery is one of the most powerful criminal industries (pdf), and it is because of
our collective silence and refusal to acknowledge its existence that it thrives and transforms itself into
new forms year after year. By not speaking out, we are helping to perpetuate an industry that strips
millions of their humanity and rights.¶ ¶ Slavery did not end when it was legally abolished. Instead, it is flourishing,
extending its tentacles into every corner of the planet.¶ ¶ This is something that touches all our lives. It is almost impossible
¶ Five years ago,
not to be complicit. How many of us ask ourselves who makes biofuels, jewellery, vegetables, fruit, clothes, shoes and even carpets? We all
enjoy the cheap fruits of enslavement, while telling ourselves that exploitation happens "over there" and is nothing to do with our own country
or community.¶ ¶ Sex trafficking is finally starting to receive visibility as the horrendous human rights abuse it is. Yet more
widespread
forms of slavery and trafficking continue to go unreported and ignored.¶ ¶ I have spent the past five years
talking to people in forced labour, domestic servitude, bonded labour, servile marriages and child
slavery. These forms of slavery remain invisible, since people are silenced by discrimination, fear of
retaliation and lack of awareness. These modern forms of human slavery and criminal acts are often
excused as tradition, culture, religion or poverty, or dismissed as nothing more than bad labour
practices.¶ ¶ The slavery industry relies on the invisibility of those it preys on. Those trapped are not
visibly shackled, but they do live their lives under the control of others.¶ ¶ For the world to tackle slavery
effectively, we need to recognise this industry in people in all of its manifestations. Human rights are
equal and inalienable. I have met organisations working on ending forced marriage, or on the abuse and exploitation of domestic
workers and children, who feel they are unable to call these abuses slavery as the word is too loaded and they would put their work at risk. This
must stop. Slavery
is slavery, no matter what form it takes.¶ ¶ We must face up to all forms of slavery or
inadvertently ignore the plight of millions. One type of slavery, such as sex trafficking, cannot be
considered more worth fighting for than another. We have a collective responsibility to end this
pernicious and persistent problem.¶ ¶ All countries must ensure that they have national legislation
prohibiting and criminalising all forms of slavery, and this legislation must be properly enforced. The
failure of justice systems to put anti-slavery laws into action is one of the props the slavery industry
relies upon. This needs to change.¶ ¶ To combat slavery, we need to speak for people who have been silenced
by this most brutal of trades. We must stop being complacent, and find the courage to hold individuals,
companies and governments accountable. Complacency is no longer an option.
Markets for procurement are the most ethical solution
Sobota, 2004 (Margaret R. Sobota B.A. Biology (2002), B.A. Philosophy (2002), University of North
Carolina; J.D. Candidate (2005), Washington University School of Law, Fall 2004, “THE PRICE OF LIFE: $
50,000 FOR AN EGG, WHY NOT $ 1,500 FOR A KIDNEY? AN ARGUMENT TO ESTABLISH A MARKET FOR
ORGAN PROCUREMENT SIMILAR TO THE CURRENT MARKET FOR HUMAN EGG PROCUREMENT” 82
Wash. U. L. Q. 1225, lexis)
The main argument against establishing a market for organ procurement is economic coercion. n141 Market opponents insist that poor, destitute people from around the world will be forced
the economic coercion argument is based
on the false premise that the prices donors will be paid for their organs will be high enough to override
their doubts and ethical concerns about becoming a donor. n144 In the proposed market system for organ procurement, either OPOs or the state
will be paying the donors; thus preventing potential wealthy recipients from driving up the prices paid for
organs. n145 With only moderate prices being paid to organ donors, economic incentives would likely not outweigh a donor's moral objections to
donation, and thus no economic coercion would occur. n146 Additionally, the current market system for egg donation suggests that
economic coercion would not be a problem in a market for organ procurement. n147 A majority of egg donors are not poor or minority women, and the amounts
into selling their organs without making an informed decision. n142 There are several flaws with this argument. n143 First,
paid to them for their donations are usually not an "undue inducement to undergo the medical [*1246] risks involved." n148 These facts suggest that if a system of financial compensation for
organ donation were established, comparable to the system already in place for egg donation,
there would similarly be no economic coercion of
donors. A second argument commonly advanced against proposed markets for organ procurement is that any such market would reduce altruism and people who would have donated
their organs under an altruistic system will no longer want to donate their organs under a market system because they find a market for human organs despicable. n149 However, there
is no evidence that altruism and a market system cannot coexist. n150 A comparison to the current blood market in the
United States shows that there is no evidence of reduced altruism in that system, which relies on altruistic donations as
well as paid donations. n151 A final argument commonly advanced against proposed markets for organ procurement is that such markets would create unequal
access to organs depending on the potential recipient's wealth. n152 This concern only applies to markets for organ allocation, not
procurement as advocated here. n153 A market for organ allocation would likely have this problem; wealthy recipients would be able to bid for their new kidneys, while poor
recipients would be left helpless. n154 However, a market system of [*1247]
procurement will not in any way affect how organs are
currently allocated by UNOS.
It is actually far more exploitative to not compensate donors – circumvents undue
inducement and value to risk. Legal and regulated activity recalibrates the market.
James Stacey Taylor and Mary Simmerling, 2008 “Donor Compensation without exploitation”, Sally
Satal, MD editor When Altruism isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors, pg. 57
Yet the fact that potential donors are motivated by financial gain rather than by altruism is not sufficient to show they are acting less than fully voluntarily, that they autonomy is impaired
it is exploitative not to compensate donors. As altruistic kidney
donor Virginia Postrel has written, “expecting people to take risks and give up something of value without compensation
strikes me as a far worse form of exploitation than paying them. I don’t expect soldiers or police officers
to work for free, and I don’t think we should base our entire organ donation system on the idea that
everyone but the donor should get paid. Like all price controls, that creates a shortage – in this case, a
deadly one. And while giving up a kidney has risks, it is no more risky and far less emotionally fraught than being a surrogate mother. Furthermore, a compensation
program can circumvent the risk of undue inducement by not catering to the desperate. Such individuals desire cash
through pressure applied to their will or that they are being exploited. Indeed, perhaps
and want it immediately. The proposed system would establish a months long period of medical screening and education. It would also provide in kind rewards, or cash paid out in modest
amounts over a long period of time (a strategy which, incidentally would also ensure that donors return for follow up care). Such a system of compensation would probably not be attractive to
a legal system of compensation with
strict donor protections creates conditions in which the decision to relinquish a kidney can be informed
and influenced by an offer rather than distorted by it.
people who might otherwise rush to flawed judgment –and surgery on the promise of a large sum of instant cash. Thus,
Advantage 2 - Disease
Scenario 1 is Transplant Tourism
Transplant tourism is growing and the plan solves
Torrrey 14
“Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, Buying and Selling Human Organs” By Trisha Torrey Updated June 13, 2014 http://patients.about.com/od/healthcarefraud/a/Organ-Trafficking-And-
Transplant-Tourism.htm http://patients.about.com/bio/Trisha-Torrey-35320.htm Bio:Trisha is recognized by patients and professionals alike for her ability to translate the challenges patients face into t ools and solutions they can use to improve their health care. Her
work is broad-based. In addition to her writing and speaking, she has built a website called the AdvoConnection Health Advocate Directory to help connect patients and patient advocates, where she also provides business advice to the advocates who participate through The Alliance of
Professional Health Advocates (APHAdvocates.org) Trisha's first book, You Bet Your Life! The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes (How to Fix Them to Get the Healthcare You Deserve) was published for patients and caregivers in early 2010, later revised and updated in 2013 to address the
changes and new issues brought about by the Affordable Care Act. Her second and third books, The Health Advocate's Marketing Handbook and The Health Advocate's Start and Grow Your Own Practice Handbook,were written to help private health and patient advocates help patients.
It's not unusual to find Trisha quoted in the mainstream media, including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, O Magazin e, Time and More magazines.
Such commercialization of human organs, called organ trafficking should be no surprise. There is clearly
a market comprised of people who need money, and people of means who are willing to spend money
for organs. It's a black market, meaning the practice is wholly illegal and secretive. But it's a market all
the same, comprised of "haves" on the demand side, and "have nots" on the supply side. Experts from
the World Health Organization estimate 11,000 illegal organ transactions took place in 2010. This
"transplant tourism" is surging in popularity, even in the United States, for at least three reasons. First,
because the numbers of people who need organs is growing. Second, because the transplant lists, such
as those determined by UNOS in the United States are getting longer and longer. And third, because the
world economic crisis is forcing people to look at ways they can make money. Selling their organs can
put food on the table.
That’s Key to Prevent the risk of multiple disease pandemics; including AIDS and
tropical diseases.
Paredes 2010, Carlos Franco, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 14, Issue 3, March
Pages e189–e196
Many transplanted patients may live or travel to regions where some of the most frequent viral tropical infections are prevalent. Transplant recipients traveling to resource-constrained
settings endemic for tropical infections including yellow fever, dengue, rabies, and other viral pathogens should seek expert pretravel medical advice to maximally decrease their risk of
infection. This is important as immunosuppression associated with transplantation may affect the outcome of acute viral infections or the course of virus latency, with potential life-threatening
consequences. There are reports of HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, measles, human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection dengue, and other viral pathogens being responsible for
significant sequelae and mortality in transplant recipients. In this regard, yellow fever presents a risk to transplant recipients who are traveling to endemic areas in part because the vaccine is
Transplant tourism has been responsible for a significant number of
patients acquiring hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HIV-infection in those transplanted
overseas. There may also be an increased risk of West Nile virus infection, lymphocytic
choriomeningitis virus, or some hemorrhagic fever virus in many tropical areas of the world, including
live and therefore should be avoided.
some parts of the Indian subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, but there are only recent descriptions, mostly in non-tropical settings. It remains to be determined if other similar
flaviviruses such as Japanese encephalitis virus may pose an increased risk of complications in transplant recipients. Rabies is rarely observed after transplantation with only a few cases acquired
with increasing travel of transplant recipients to areas where
rabies may be more prevalent and also due to transplant tourism, rabies becomes a
potential pathogen for transplant recipients. In addition, live rabies vaccine for use in wildlife has caused human disease and presents a potential
from infected donors in industrialized countries. However,
risk to transplant recipients who come into direct contact with wildlife. 3 We discuss below, in more detail, some HTLV-1, measles, and dengue virus infections in transplant recipients. Although
these infections may be acquired in non-tropical settings, the risk of their acquisition is higher in developing tropical areas of the world.
Tropical diseases overcome generic defenses --- extinction
Franca et al. 13 (R. Franca, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, C. C. de Silva, Department of General Biology, Federal University of Vicosa, Brazil, S.O. De Paula,
Laboratory of Molecular Immunovirology, Federal University of Vicosa, Brazil, “Recent Advances in Molecular Medicine Techniques for the Diagnosis, Prevention, and Control of Infectious Diseases,” Springer-Verlag Berlin
Heidelberg, submitted November 26, 2012, published January 22, 2013, pg. 1)
In recent years we have observed great advances in our ability to combat infectious diseases. Through the development of novel genetic methodologies, including a better understanding of pathogen biology, pathogenic
mechanisms, advances in vaccine development, designing new therapeutic drugs, and optimization of diagnostic tools, significant infectious diseases are now better controlled. Here, we briefly describe recent reports in the
literature concentrating on infectious disease control. The focus of this review is to describe the molecular methods widely used in the diagnosis, prevention, and control of infectious diseases with regard to the innovation of
molecular techniques. Since the list of pathogenic microorganisms is extensive, we emphasize some of the major human infectious diseases (AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, rotavirus, herpes virus, viral hepatitis, and dengue fever). As
a consequence of these developments, infectious diseases will be more accurately and effectively treated; safe and effective vaccines are being developed and rapid detection of infectious agents now permits countermeasures to
infectious diseases remain a strong challenge to human survival.
Introduction Despite the great advances in medicine, particularly in new therapeutic drugs, diagnostic tools, and even ways to pre- vent diseases, the human species still faces serious health problems. Among these
problems, those that draw the most attention are infectious diseases, especially in poor regions. An important feature of
avoid potential outbreaks and epidemics. But, despite considerable progress,
infectious disease is its potential to arise globally, as exemplified by known devastating past and present
pandemics such as the bubonic–pneumonic plague, Spanish flu (1918 influenza pandemic), and the present pandemic of
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in which an estimated 33.3 million persons were living with the HIV infection worldwide at the end of 2009 [1–3]. In addition, other non-viral
diseases are significant public health problems, as exemplified by tuberculosis (TB). This infectious disease accounts for one third of the world’s bacterial infections (TB infected), and in 2010 a total of 8.8 million people worldwide
became sick with TB [1, 4]. In recent years, new forms of infectious diseases have become significantly important to medical and scientific communities; these forms are now widely known as emergent and re-emergent infectious
in addition to reemerging diseases like dengue
fever, the concerns about a global epidemic are not unfounded [5]. Moreover, in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, parasitic infections are
diseases. With the appearance of new transmissible diseases, such as SARS, West Nile and H5N1/H1N1 Influenza viruses,
a common cause of death. Since one of the major characteristics of infectious diseases is its inter-individual transmission, advances in personal protection, effective public policy, and immunological procedures are efficient means
improvement of pre-existing technologies commonly used to monitor, prevent,
and treat infectious diseases is of crucial importance not only to the medical community, but also to
humankind.
of controlling the spread of these diseases. Thus,
Additionally, The Gram Negative Plasmid NDM-1 has potential for huge international
spread because of transplant tourism.
Tamara L. Hill Chicago Journal of International Law Summer, 2011 12 Chi. J. Int'l L. 273
COMMENT: The Spread of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria through Medical Tourism and Transmission
Prevention Under the International Health Regulations
Medical tourism--travel by healthcare patients to a foreign location for medical treatment--is a growing industry. n1 Broadly, medical tourism may refer to all travel for healthcare, but the most typical definition focuses particularly on international medical tourism, which is travel between
countries for medical treatment. This definition does not include healthcare provided to foreign tourists that is incidental to travel for other purposes, such as business or recreation. Many patients travel abroad for medical treatment due to significant cost savings, to utilize procedures
not approved for treatment in their resident countries, or to exercise control over healthcare where public or private [*276] insurance plans provide limited treatment options. n2 Healthcare is nationally regulated in every country, and difficulties arise where legal remedies and standards
vary between a medical tourist's resident and destination country. In particular, medical malpractice, safety certification and licensing, and privacy are recurring topics in medical tourism literature. n3 Other ethical issues have been addressed by political organizations and the media,
including lack of available care for residents of medical tourism destination countries or black market organ transplants. n4 However, not all of the repercussions of medical tourism ar e limited to those affecting only the patient, such as safety, cost, and liability.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are typically limited to healthcare settings, and strains of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria that spread outside of a healthcare setting, like
MRSA)
.
As medical tourism increases, however, the spread of healthcare-associated antibiotic-resistant bacteria
infections is also likely to increase, because patients are more likely to be exposed to hospitals and
healthcare settings in different countries and thus spread their infections to facilities around the world
One recently discovered antibiotic-resistant
strain of bacteria, named New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), has shown evidence of fast
international spread due to connections with medical tourism.
community-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (
, provoke more concern, since healthcare-
associated strains have predictable risk factors. n5 These predictable risk factors generally reduce concern regarding healthcare-associated strains in the medical community because hospitals can set admission and contact policies to reduce the spread of healthcare associated strains
.
Exposure without patient knowledge, language barriers, and [*277] inconsistent healthcare regulation and hospital policies reduce the predictability of transmission.
n6
The Spread is quick –it makes every other disease Gram Negative – That Creates
SuperBugs
Goan Observer 2010, 8-21-10, “Delhi Bugged?”, http://goanobserver.com/delhi-bugged.html
In a summary of the study on the website of The Lancet, the team claims to have ‘identified
44 isolates with NDM-1 in Chennai, 26 in Haryana, 37 in the UK, and 73 in other sites in
India and Pakistan…. Many of the UK NDM-1 positive patients had travelled to India or
Pakistan within the past year, or had links with these countries’ and further add that ‘The
potential of NDM-1 to be a worldwide public health problem is great and co-ordinated
international surveillance is needed’. Those affected by this ‘superbug’ were reported to be
critically ill and were, at times, observed to be suffering from blood poisoning. NDM-1 enzyme,
if it is really indomitable, can be expected to make all the bacterial diseases invincible in near
future. With more people travelling to find less costly medical treatments, particularly for
procedures such as cosmetic surgery, Timothy Walsh, who led the study, said he feared the
new superbug could soon spread across the globe.
Must Act Now - Anti-biotic Bubble is Set to Burst
Katherine Xue May-June 2014 Katherine Xue ’13 is associate editor of Harvard magazine. Superbug: An
Epidemic Begins http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/05/superbug
NEARLY 80 years after the antibiotic revolution, the human relationship with S. aureus is again on the verge of change. Genes for vancomycin resistance are increasingly prevalent, and on at
Resistance to last-line drugs is brewing in many
other bacterial species as well. Chance will determine when resistance finally catches on, and resistant
strains spread through the bacterial population—taking the place of what has come before, once again
transforming the game of survival that humans and microbes play. Can humans evolve first? Bacterial
evolution occurs with barely imaginable rapidity. But the antibiotic revolution that transformed our
ancient relationship started not with a gene, but with an idea. This idea, once harnessed and spread through society at scale—the human
version, perhaps, of horizontal gene transfer—has enabled our species to remain ahead. The pieces are in place for change. We have our own
means of resistance, and they are already common in parts of the human population. Activism and
awareness are ancient, while the seeds of scientific innovation are new. What has been missing is the
impetus for change, the pressure that causes an idea to spread. “How big does this problem have to get
for us to do something about it?” asks Michael Gilmore. “The challenge is, there’s a lag between when
we realize a problem is big enough and when we can come up with a solution.” The cause may be a gene
or an idea. But sometime soon, an epidemic will begin.
least 12 separate occasions, they have entered MRSA to create new, vancomycin-resistant strains.
Extinction
Yu 9, Victoria Yu, Dartmouth Journal of Undergraduate Science, “Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of
Our Fate”, 5-22-09 http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-ourfate
A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic
plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague
and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process that maintains the
possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true
that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s
abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in
HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the
human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for more easily
transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that
lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not
immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control
The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill
over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more
frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral strain
— which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
and Prevention (9).
Scenario 2 Is Xenotransplantation
The shortage of kidneys is driving xenotransplantation research
Cowan et al. 2014 (Peter J. Cowan, PhD, David K.C. Cooper, MD, PhD, and Anthony J.F. d’Apice, MD,
1Immunology Research Centre, St Vincent’s Hospital, 2Department of Medicine, University of
Melbourne, 3Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center,
“KIDNEY XENOTRANSPLANTATION” Kidney Int. Feb 2014; 85(2): 265–275.)
Kidney transplantation, the best treatment for end-stage renal disease, is limited by the shortage of human donors. Although the
donor pool has been expanded by strategies such as paired donation and the use of blood group-incompatible and non-heart-beating donors, it remains unlikely to
meet the increasing demand in the foreseeable future. This has driven a search for alternative sources
of donor kidneys. Much recent activity has focused on the generation of transplantable tissue from autologous stem cells, but the complexity of the kidney makes this a longterm prospect at best (1). In contrast, xenotransplantation using pigs as donors has been studied for several decades (2, 3), and porcine cellular xenografts have
already reached the stage of clinical trials (4). The pig is the animal donor of choice for a number of reasons including relatively similar organ size and physiology,
high reproductive capacity, and the potential for genetic modification to prevent rejection and correct molecular incompatibilities. Preclinical studies indicate that pig kidney
xenotransplantation is feasible, with renal xenografts supporting life for several weeks or months in non-human primate recipients (5-8). However, despite considerable progress in recent
years,
the immunological and pathophysiological barriers have not been completely overcome. The major challenge
is to place renal xenografts on at least an equal footing with allografts i.e. with comparable survival rates under similar levels of immunosuppression. This is likely to require a combination of
‘humanized’ donors and clinically applicable immunosuppressive protocols. Herein we will review the mechanisms of porcine renal xenograft rejection and describe recent progress in moving
kidney xenotransplantation to the clinic.
This is in spite of the fact that its not a solution to the shortage
Fovargue & Ost, 2010 (SARA FOVARGUE AND SUZANNE OST* Law School, Lancaster University.
August 17, 2010. “WHEN SHOULD PRECAUTION PREVAIL? INTERESTS IN (PUBLIC) HEALTH, THE RISK OF
HARM AND XENOTRANSPLANTATION” Med Law Rev (2010) 18 (3): 302-329.)
As the barriers to xenotransplantation have yet to be pre-clinically addressed, there is limited evidence
that genetically engineered pigs will be a source of viable organs. It is not known whether such an organ
will be able to support the life of a human, neither is it clear what risks the xeno-recipient and others
may be exposed to. Despite these uncertainties, researchers continue to work towards clinical trials,
with some suggesting these are ‘imminent’.55 It is thus essential to consider the more theoretical
question of whether to allow trials which may benefit a few but jeopardise the health of many more
and, first, the practical question of how, if permitted, such trials are regulated.
This Inflates the Risk of a New Epidemic and Mutation
Fano et al 2000
**MAs and MDs doing a lit review of Xenotransplantation [Alix Fano, M.A., Murry J. Cohen, M.D., Marjorie Cramer, M.D., F.A.C.S., Ray Greek, M.D., Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D., Executive Summary, Of Pigs, Primates, and Plagues, A
Responsible public health
authorities would steer clear of xenotransplantation in the interest of human health, particularly in light of the knowledge that animal viruses can
jump the species barrier and kill humans. HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - may be a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that leapt the species
barrier in central Africa. Health authorities were unable to prevent the worldwide spread of HIV infection. Similarly, they were unable to
prevent Ebola outbreaks in Sudan, Zaire (1976, 1979, 1995) and the US (1989, 1996). Furthermore, there is evidence that humans have become ill after consuming or
being injected with animal materials. There is a reported link between the smallpox vaccine (derived from animal cells) and AIDS, a recently acknowledged link between human lung, brain
Layperson's Guide to the Problems With Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants, http://www.mrmcmed.org/pigs.html] 4. We Should Learn From the Past
and bone cancer and the SV (simian virus) 40 (found in old batches of the Salk polio vaccine), and the threat of emerging infectious diseases, including human Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) from the consumption of "mad cows" in
Baboon viruses flourish on human tissue cultures, before killing
the cultures. There are over 20 known, potentially lethal viruses that can be transmitted from nonhuman primates to humans,
including Ebola, Marburg, hepatitis A and B, herpes B, SV40, and SIV. Numerous scientists have urged US public health
agencies to exclude primates as donors for xenotransplantation. 6. Why Pigs Should Not Be Used As Organ "Donors" Given the acknowledged danger
Europe, the Netherlands, and the US. 5. Why Nonhuman Primates Should Not Be Used As Organ "Donors"
pigs are being considered as the choice "donor" animals for xenotransplants. However, pig retroviruses have infected
human kidney cells in vitro; and virologists believe that many pig viruses have not been adequately
studied. Viruses that are harmless to their animal hosts, can be deadly when transmitted to humans. For example, Macaque herpes is
harmless to Macaque monkeys, but lethal to humans. The deadly human influenza virus of 1918 that killed more
than 20 million people worldwide was a mutation of a swine flu virus that evolved from American pigs and
from nonhuman primate viruses,
was spread around the world by US troops. Leptospirosis (which produces liver and kidney damage), and erysipelas (a skin infection), are among the a pproximately 25 known diseases that can be acquired from pigs, all of which
could easily affect immunosuppressed humans.
There may be myriad unknown "pig diseases" still to be discovered. In addition, physiological and
anatomical differences between humans and pigs call into question the rationale for their use. These include differences in life-span, heart rate, blood pressure, metabolism, immunology, and regulatory hormones. A pig heart put
into a human will turn black and stop beating in fifteen minutes. There is no clinical evidence to suggest that this acute cellular and vascular rejection will ever be overcome, or that organs from genetically bred pigs are any less
, the massive doses of immunosuppressive drugs that would be
required for such an operation would likely cause severe toxicity, and increase the patient's chances of
developing cancer. 7. Xenotransplantation Gives Animal Viruses Easy Access to Humans Transplanting living animal organs into humans
circumvents the natural barriers (such as skin and gastrointestinal tract) that prevent infection, thereby facilitating the
transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans. 8. No Way To Screen For Unknown Viruses There is no way to screen for unknown viruses.
Proceeding with xenotransplantation could expose patients and non-patients to a host of new animal viruses which
could remain dormant for months or years before being detected. Many viruses, as innocuous as the common cold or as lethal as Ebola, can be transmitted via a mere cough or sneeze. An animal virus residing in
a xenograft recipient might become airborne, infecting scores of people, and causing a potentially deadly viral
epidemic of global proportions akin to HIV or worse. It is highly unlikely that scientists and health care workers
would be prepared to cope with such a scenario. 9. Unanswered Medico-Legal Questions Would the US government be prepared to compensate victims of xenogeneic
likely to be rejected by the human body than those from conventional pigs. Moreover
infections (such as people who may inadvertently contract an infection from a xenograft recipient)? The French government was forced to establish a $2.2 billion fund to compensate victims of AIDS-contaminated blood
transfusions administered between 1980 and 1985. Compensation claims in the US have been filed by Persian Gulf War veterans, victims of secret government-sanctioned radiation and syphilis experiments, Vietnam war veterans
exposed to Agent Orange, and parents of vaccine-damaged children. The government may now also be held liable for failing to protect citizens fr//om SV40-contaminated polio vaccine. And what about patients who may choose to
participate in privately-funded research where there are no mechanisms of accountability to federal health authorities, and little chance (for patients and non-patients) of receiving remuneration for injury or death. Can we afford
proponents claim that they will breed "germ-free" animals to
diminish the risk of viral transmission. But in its June 1996 report, the Institute of Medicine acknowledged that "it is
not possible to have completely pathogen-free animals, even those derived by Cesarean section, because some potentially infectious agents
are passed in the genome and others may be passed transplacentally." Some British virologists say that it would be "a daunting task to eliminate
infectious retroviruses from pigs to be used for xenotransplantation, given that [they] estimate approximately 50 PERV [pig endogenous retroviruses] per pig genome." 11. Weak
Regulatory Oversight, and Human Error and Negligence, Would Facilitate Disease Transmission Proposed
regulatory oversight of xenotransplantation procedures is weak and would likely be highly flawed. Virologist Jonathan Allan has stated that, "in choosing
voluntary guidelines to be enforced at a local level [via local institutional review boards], . . . the FDA/ CDC committee has chosen the least stringent and possibly least
successful method of policing these transplant procedures. Moreover, in all areas of human activity, particularly when money is involved, the
potential for fraud, error, and negligence exists. In the past, such behavior has placed human health at considerable risk. Witness the HIV-contaminated blood scandals in
another public health catastrophe? 10. The Myth of the "Germ-Free" Animal Xenotransplant
France, China, Japan, and the US, for example, in which employees and/or medical authorities knowingly allowed HIV-contaminated blood to be used for transfusions and blood-clotting treatments for hemophiliacs. Given the
it would be naive (given human nature) to assume that data will be
properly recorded, stored, reviewed, and updated. Regulatory mechanisms often fail to prevent or
correct these errors and/or behaviors, the consequences of which could be disastrous in the face of a xenogeneic infection.
enormous amount of data, paperwork, and filing xenotransplant procedures would generate,
Extinction
Bach, Ivinson, & Weeramantry 01 a. Lewis Thomas Professor at Harvard Medical School and
Director of the Immunobiology Research Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center b. Former
Editor of Nature Medicine and former Publisher of the Nature monthly journals c. Former Vice President
and presently Judge Ad Hoc of the International Court of Justice [Prof. Fritz H. Bach+, Dr. Adrian J.
Ivinson++ and H.E. Judge Christopher Weeramantry*, Ethical and Legal Issues in Technology:
Xenotransplantation, American Journal of Law & Medicine]
a pig virus might infect the human recipient, mutate and spread first to the close contacts of the patient
and then to the general population. The genetic coding of pig viruses lie in the DNA of all pig cells, including the cells of the transplanted organ. While we do not know how
many pig viral sequences exist that could be of concern to us, we do know from laboratory experiments that some pig viruses can infect human cells. Of
One potential risks of xenotransplantation is that
risk, however remote, that
a pandemic could result as a consequence of pig-to-human organ transplantation exists. The viruses of most concern, referred to as porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERV), n8
belong to the same family of retroviruses that causes AIDS. Investigators have shown that in the test tube, a pig PERV can infect
human cells. PERV's have captured the headlines, probably because it is a relative of HIV and we really have no effective treatment for AIDS. However, one must realize that PERV are not the only infectious particle
course this laboratory demonstration of infection is a long way from the natural world, and a simple, isolated, real life infection is in turn a long way from an epidemic. Nonetheless, the [*286]
that could cause trouble. Just over a year ago, 104 pig farmers died and many more became sick due to a previously unknown pig virus. What is the likelihood that a PERV or other pig viruses would infect a human recipient, cause
There is no way of quantifying that potential risk. What is known is that if the worst happened, i.e. the PERV did
get out into the general population and cause widespread disease, the consequences could be
devastating by any measure. Even if we did recognize that a patient had an illness caused by a pig virus, there is no guarantee that we could
identify the disease before that patient passed the disease to a close contact or others. Complicating this picture of ignorance is the fact that we have no way of predicting
when a virus may manifest itself. The expression of the virus could occur after only a few or perhaps thousands of
xenotransplants have been performed. Almost certainly, we would have to perform xenotransplantation on humans to ascertain this risk. And only if a patient became
infected would we be able to begin estimating the risk. 3. Different Approaches to the Risk. How does one balance the clear
clinical value of pig-to-human transplants (once the problems of rejection are solved) with this potential, unproven risk to all of humanity? It seems almost an unsolvable problem.
disease and be transmitted to others?
Therefore, classical risk-benefit analysis is most difficult in this situation. Those concerned with this problem can be split into two groups. There are those who are willing to start xenotransplantation to humans once the research
warrants it (a judgment that will not have uniform consensus). n9 These individuals propose a cautious approach: an iterative process in which some small number of transplants would be performed and those patients would be
watched for some period [*287] of time before more transplants are done. n10 If there are no signs of an infection by a pig virus, more procedures could be performed. Over time, this approach would decrease, but not eliminate,
potential risks
associated with xenotransplantation are too great to undertake the procedure. n11 They point out that no matter
how small the risk, if a viral outbreak does occur, the consequences could be globally catastrophic. Further, they
contend that alternative therapies to transplantation are under development that may not carry such a risk and that may be available as soon as, or almost so, as
the potential risk that an infectious epidemic would later emerge due to a dormant virus that manifests only after many years of residence in the human host. Others feel that the
xenotransplantation.
Framing
War is obsolete and will not occur – economic interdependence, socio-economic
conditions, and nuclear deterrence - checks on conflict are irreversible.
Chirstopher J. Fettweis, 2006, is assistant professor of political science at Tulane University, where he
teaches classes on international relations, US foreign policy and security, Treasurer of the World Affairs
Council, National Security Decision Making Department, US Naval War College International Studies
Review, Ebsco Host
However, one need not be convinced about the potential for ideas to transform international politics to believe that
major war is extremely unlikely to recur. Mueller, Mandelbaum, Ray, and
others may give primary credit for the end of major war to ideational evolution akin to that which made slavery and dueling obsolete, but others have interpreted the causal chain quite differently. Neoliberal institutionalists have
complex economic interdependence can have a pacifying effect upon state behavior (Keohane and Nye 1977, 1987). Richard Rosecrance
socio-economic organization has altered the shortest, most rational route to state
prosperity in ways that make war unlikely. Finally, many others have argued that credit for great power peace can be given to the existence of
nuclear weapons, which make aggression irrational ( Jervis 1989; Kagan et al. 1999). With so many overlapping and mutually reinforcing explanations, at times the end
long argued that
(1986, 1999) has contended that evolution in
of major war may seem to be overdetermined ( Jervis 2002:8–9). For purposes of the present discussion, successful identification of the exact cause of this fundamental change in state behavior is probably not as important as
belief in its existence. In other words, the outcome is far more important than the mechanism. The importance of Mueller’s argument for the field of IR is ultimately not dependent upon why major war has become obsolete, only
all these proposed explanations have one important point in common: they all imply that change will be permanent.
interdependence is
deepening as time goes on and going at a quicker pace. And, obviously, nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented and (at least at this point) no foolproof defense against
their use seems to be on the horizon. The combination of forces that may have brought major war to an end seems to be unlikely to allow its return. The twentieth century witnessed an
unprecedented pace of evolution in all areas of human endeavor, from science and medicine to philosophy and religion. In such an
atmosphere, it is not difficult to imagine that attitudes toward the venerable institution of war may also have
experienced rapid evolution and that its obsolescence could become plausible, perhaps even probable, in spite of
thousands of years of violent precedent. The burden of proof would seem to be on those who maintain that the ‘‘rules of the game’’ of international politics, including the rules of
war, are the lone area of human interaction immune to fundamental evolution and that, due to these immutable and eternal rules, war will always be with us. Rather than ask how major war
could have grown obsolete, perhaps scholars should ask why anyone should believe that it could not.
that it has. Almost as significant,
Normative/ideational evolution is typically unidirectionalFfew would argue that it is likely, for instance, for slavery or dueling to return in this century. The complexity of economic
Diseases are a bigger threat than war.
WHO, 00, “Overcoming Antimicrobial Resistance”, WHO Report on Infectious Diseases, A Message
From the Director-General of WHO http://www.who.int/infectious-diseasereport/2000/other_versions/index-rpt2000_text.html
Today - despite advances in science and technology - infectious disease poses a more deadly
threat to human life than war. This year – at the onset of a new millennium – the international
community is beginning to show its intent to turn back these microbial invaders through
massive efforts against diseases of poverty – diseases which must be defeated now, before they
become resistant. When diseases are fought wisely and widely, drug resistance can be
controlled and lives saved.
Nuclear war does not cause extinction
Nyquist 1999 [J.R., WorldNetDaily contributing editor and author of ‘Origins of the Fourth World
War,’ May 20, Antipas, “Is Nuclear War Survivable?”
http://www.antipas.org/news/world/nuclear_war.html]
The truth is, many
prominent physicists have condemned the nuclear winter hypothesis
It’s
atrocious science
researchers “stacked the deck”
nuclear winter research, “
an absolutely
piece of
. Nobel laureate Freeman Dyson once said of
, but I quite despair of setting the public record straight.” Professor Michael McElroy, a Harvard physics professor, also criticized the nuclear winter
hypothesis. McElroy said that nuclear winter
in their study, which was titled “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions” (Science, December
1983). Nuclear winter is the theory that the mass use of nuclear weapons would create enough smoke and dust to blot out the sun, causing a catastrophic drop in global temperatures. According to Carl Sagan, in this situation the earth would freeze. No crops
could be grown. Humanity would die of cold and starvation. In truth, natural disasters have frequently produced smoke and dust far greater than those expected from a nuclear war. In 1883
a blast equivalent to 10,000 one-megaton bombs
explosion had negligible weather effects
Krakatoa exploded with
, a detonation greater than the combined nuclear arsenals of planet earth.
The Krakatoa
. Even more disastrous, going back many thousands of years, a meteor struck Quebec with the force of 17.5 million one-megaton bombs, creating a
crater 63 kilometers in diameter. But the world did not freeze. Life on earth was not extinguished. Consider the views of Professor George Rathjens of MIT, a known antinuclear activist, who said, “Nuclear winter is the worst example of misrepresentation of
science to the public in my memory.” Also consider Professor Russell Seitz, at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, who says that the nuclear winter hypothesis has been discredited. Two researchers, Starley Thompson and Stephen Schneider,
the global apocalyptic conclusions of the initial
nuclear winter hypothesis can now be relegated to a vanishingly low level of probability
What about nuclear fallout?
debunked the nuclear winter hypothesis in the summer 1986 issue of Foreign Affairs. Thompson and Schneider stated: “
.” OK, so
nuclear winter isn’t going to happen.
Wouldn’t the radiation from a nuclear war contaminate the whole earth, killing everyone? The short answer is: absolutely not. Nuclear fallout is
a problem, but we should not exaggerate its effects. As it happens, there are two types of fallout produced by nuclear detonations. These are: 1) delayed fallout; and 2) short-term fallout. According to researcher Peter V. Pry, “Delayed fallout will not, contrary to
popular belief, gradually kill billions of people everywhere in the world.” Of course, delayed fallout would increase the num ber of people dying of lymphatic cancer, leukemia, and cancer of the thyroid. “However,” says Pry, “these deaths would probably be far
fallout
could kill millions
But
subsides to safe levels in 13 days
there
were no documented deaths from short-term or delayed fallout at either Hiroshima or
Nagasaki.
Today’s
weapons are even “cleaner.”
fewer than deaths now resulting from ... smoking, or from automobile accidents.” The real hazard in a nuclear war is the short-term fallout. This is a type of
of people, depending on the targeting strategy of the attacking country.
short-term fallout rapidly
created when a nuclear weapon is detonated at ground level. This type of fallout
to 18
. It is
not permanent. People who live outside of the affected areas will be fine. Those in affected areas can survive if they have access to underground shelters. In some areas, staying indoors may even suffice. Contrary to popular misconception,
These blasts were low airbursts, which produced minimal fallout effects.
thermonuclear
If used in airburst mode, these weapons
would produce few (if any) fallout casualties.
Failure to incorporate methods of dealing with structural violence into our politics is
the failure of politics all together
Winter and Leighton 1999 (Deborah DuNann Winter and Dana C. Leighton. Winter: Psychologist
that specializes in Social Psych, Counseling Psych, Historical and Contemporary Issues, Peace Psychology.
Leighton: PhD graduate student in the Psychology Department at the University of Arkansas.
Knowledgable in the fields of social psychology, peace psychology, and ustice and intergroup responses
to transgressions of justice) (Peace, conflict, and violence: Peace psychology in the 21st century. Pg 4-5)
Finally, to recognize the operation of structural violence forces us to ask questions about how and why we tolerate it, questions which often have painful answers for the privileged elite who unconsciously support it. A final
how and why we allow ourselves to be so oblivious to structural violence. Susan Opotow offers an intriguing set of
our normal perceptual/cognitive processes divide people into in-groups and
out-groups. Those outside our group lie outside our scope of justice. Injustice that would be
instantaneously confronted if it occurred to someone we love or know is barely noticed if it occurs to
strangers or those who are invisible or irrelevant. We do not seem to be able to open our minds and our
hearts to everyone, so we draw conceptual lines between those who are in and out of our moral circle.
Those who fall outside are morally excluded, and become either invisible, or demeaned in some way so
that we do not have to acknowledge the injustice they suffer. Moral exclusion is a human failing, but Opotow argues convincingly that it is an outcome of
everyday social cognition. To reduce its nefarious effects, we must be vigilant in noticing and listening to oppressed,
invisible, outsiders. Inclusionary thinking can be fostered by relationships, communication, and
appreciation of diversity. Like Opotow, all the authors in this section point out that structural violence is not inevitable if we become
aware of its operation, and build systematic ways to mitigate its effects. Learning about structural
violence may be discouraging, overwhelming, or maddening, but these papers encourage us to step beyond guilt and anger, and begin to think about
how to reduce structural violence. All the authors in this section note that the same structures (such as global communication and normal social
cognition) which feed structural violence, can also be used to empower citizens to reduce it.
question of this section is
answers, in her article Social Injustice. She argues that
2AC
T
No tax credits
The state will pay the donor in cash the insurance is just about how the extra cost will be covered such
as
Education – We increase topic education by talking about the functions of policy
making, the results of our policies, the way transplant tourism and illicit markets
function as well as a scientific education through the disease advantage.
Limits – the neg over limits the topic, the affs interpretation provides for creativity
and good plan writing.
Fairness – There is no in-round or out round abuse when they read on case
defense/offense as well as Off case specifics with specific links, (they did), so they
can’t win a fairness debate.
Predictability – first, it’s on case list as well as the warrants and they had time to prep
this. Second, it literally is the fundamentals of one of the five topic areas
CX and pre round prep checks
Reasonability - If you believe we are reasonably topical you vote aff.
Framing
To many obstacles such as econ interdependency, deterrence and soco-econ
conditions that will check conflict from breaking out to a global nuclear exchange
that’s fettweis
Nyquist says that nuc war would never = extinction most would kill millions and
fallout cant cause extinction - we take a very probable stance in relation to impacts
means neg impacts are also held to a higher standard meaning they need ample
warranted reasons as to why war and nuc war would answer the spec warrants
and probable.
Exploitation
Disease
Overview
We will say that Transplant Tourism exist and is increasing for three reasons as
per the Torrey 14 ev
1. The number of people who need organs is growing
2. The waiting list is getting longer
3. The World Economic crisis is forcing people to look at way they can make
money
We will also say that Transplant tourism leads to rushed & unsafe surgeries and
lack of oversight leads to infections and receiving disease organs which either
leads to expensive after care or death which is the Paredes evidence
Their impact def doesn’t take into consideration the mutation of tropical diseases
in relation to LCV, hemroghpe virus or variation of HEP
bcuz tropical diseases will mutate beyond western defense because as we are
attempting to make vaccines the strand will keep mutating that’s franca
Also tropical diseases can stay in a human undetected for years – no way to detect
that’s the NDM -1 which creates resistance in diseases causing then to becoming
invincible and Goan says that that spreads internationally becuz after a foreign
transplant happens the receiver then carries diseases back to the homeland into
hospitals where people already have low immune systems meaning they get the
disease quicker
Xue says we must act now as the bubble affect is happening
Xenotransplant
Cowan says that Because of a shortage the squo is focusing on xenotransplants to
make up the gap of supply and demand
Fano says that xenotransplants would lead to two different things
1. Massive amounts of immunosuppressive drugs are delivered during the
transplant which causes toxicity and cancer
2. Animals diseases would be transferred to humans causing death because
animals diseases such a pigs have not been studied and when inteseidefed
could result in airborne diseases
Bach then says that those pigs’ viruses lead to global catastrophe and extinction
as they will be able to spread internationally
Consensus of scientists in the field say more research is unnecessary and the threat is
nil
Hynes 2011 (H. Patricia Hynes, retired professor of environmental health from Boston University and
chairs the board of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, August 18, 2011, “Biological Weapons:
Bargaining With the Devil,” Truthout, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2693:biological-weaponsbargaining-with-the-devil)
No Realistic Assessment of Need for Growth in Biodefense/Bioweapons Labs
Between 1900 and 2000, one person died in the United States from the deliberate use of a biological
weapon (altogether six died by 2011, given the five anthrax deaths in 2001). This contrasts with more than 100,000 deaths per year from
three public health causes, namely firearms, air pollution and food-borne disease. The other documented deliberate use of a pathogen involved
the contamination of salad bar food with salmonella in 1984, which sickened 751 people. This contrasts with the annual incidence of
comparable intestinal infections suffered by American tourists in Mexico, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, which must reach hundreds of
thousands, if not millions of cases. Most
historical threats of bioweapon use were hoaxes and most intended uses
were personal, according to Milton Leitenberg of the Center for International Studies at the University of Maryland. Contrary to
popular and public official statements, weaponizing biological agents is extremely difficult, requiring
immense research money, effort and expertise. Thus, the threat of biological terrorism with mass
casualties - a threat that government has elevated without a basis in fact and without any rational
threat assessment - confounds public awareness and siphons resources from true public health needs,
such as gun control, reducing air pollution and research on TB resistance.¶ In March 2005, 750 top microbiologists, comprising
the majority of US scientists studying bacterial and fungal diseases, wrote their major funding agency,
the NIH, to claim that the agency's emphasis on biodefense research had diverted research away from
germs that cause much more significant disease and death. Between 1998 and 2005, grants for researching potential
bioweapons such as the bacteria that cause anthrax, plague and tularemia and viruses such as Ebola, Marburg and smallpox increased by 1,500
percent. During the same period, grants to support non-biodefense germs that cause major sickness and death (such as TB-resistant microbes
and influenza) dropped 27 percent.
CP
Links to politics and rollback means no solvency
Calandrillo, 2004 (Steve P. Calandrillo Associate Professor, Univ. of Washington School of Law. J.D.,
Harvard Law School. B.A. in Economics, Univ. of California at Berkeley. Fall, 2004 13 Geo. Mason L. Rev.
69 “Cash for Kidneys? Utilizing Incentives to End America's Organ Shortage” lexis)
Despite the thousands of lives that would be saved, the most significant obstacle to enacting a
presumed consent system in the U.S. is our strong tradition of individual freedom and autonomy. n290
Presuming that an individual has agreed to donate her organs runs afoul of many people's core beliefs in
liberty and freedom from government interference. We would be forced to incur the risk that some
individuals would have their organs harvested who otherwise would have exercised their right to refuse
if they knew they could have. Even with stringent safeguards to protect these individuals, [*126] it
would be difficult to completely eliminate the risk that someone's autonomy would be violated.
However, a few states have enacted extremely limited forms of presumed consent legislation, including
statutes that allow coroners to remove a decedent's corneas absent an objection from their family, or
after fair inquiry to ascertain whether such an objection exists. n291 These laws have largely survived
constitutional due process and takings clause challenges. n292 However, any effort to expand the
notion of presumed consent to allow for the harvesting of all suitable organs at death would likely meet
stiff political and constitutional resistance. n293 As a practical matter, it will be challenging to overcome
our traditional emphasis on freedom and voluntary action to muster the political will to promulgate
broad-ranging presumed consent legislation. But, by juxtaposing the decision regarding presumed
consent legislation against the inevitable lives that will be lost without it, perhaps some reasonable
minds can be influenced in its favor.
Presumed consent doesn’t solve shortages—empirics
Curtis Harris and Stephen Alcorn, 2001 To Solve a Deadly Shortage: Economic Incentives for Human
Organ Donation. Issues in Law & Medicine, 87568160, Spring2001, Vol. 16, Issue 3
Most European countries have adopted a "presumed consent" system of organ procurement: that is, in
the absence of written instructions to the contrary, it is presumed the decedent has agreed to the
donation of organs at the time of death. This idea has grown in popularity and has been adopted by
several South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[48] France was the first country
to adopt presumed consent. The 1976 law states, in part: Organs may be removed for therapeutic or
scientific purposes from the cadavers of persons who have not, during their lifetime, indicated their
refusal to permit such a procedure. However, where the cadaver is that of a minor or of an incompetent
person, organs may be removed for transplantation purposes only with the authorization of the person's
legal representative.[49] Further, a physician must check the patient's medical record for a written
refusal to donate, and if one is not found make a "reasonable effort" to ascertain if such a refusal exists
in writing apart from the patient's medical records, usually by consulting the patient's immediate family.
This later provision has caused the French system to operate more as a voluntary donation system
controlled by the family, than as a truly presumed consent system. French physicians inquire as to the
wishes of the next of kin more than 90% of the time. Twelve years after adoption, this form of modified
presumed consent has had little impact. France still fails to meet its need for organs. In 1998, 4,075
patients were waiting for a kidney, 523 for a heart, 163 for lungs, and 189 patients for a liver.[50]
Belgium allows physicians to harvest organs without family consent. As in France, most Belgium doctors
continue to consult with family members and will not normally act contrary to family wishes.[51] But the
change in the law in Belgium did improve organ availability: after three years of presumed consent,
organ procurement increased 183%. Despite these modest improvements, available organs are still
fewer than needed. In 1988 Belgium transplanted 342 kidneys, leaving 803 patients waiting; and ninetysix hearts were transplanted, with thirty-four patients waiting.[52] Austria has come the closest of any
nation to achieving a true presumed consent system. The law is similar in almost all respects to that of
France and Belgium, but differs in one key aspect: the Austrian doctor is under no obligation to look
beyond the patient's medical records to find a refusal to donate. The result of this difference has led to
much better success in procuring organs. Austria procures kidneys at twice the rate of the United States
and most European countries. Despite this impressive statistic, the system is not a complete success. If
Austria's high rates of procurement were due only to its presumed consent law, one would expect it to
outpace other countries in all categories of organs covered by the law. This, however, is not the case. As
compared to France and Belgium, Austria's harvest rates are only slightly higher concerning livers, and
are actually lower concerning hearts. Although many proponents and opponents of presumed consent
may agree that the Austrian system has increased organ harvest, it still runs a shortage of organs. In
1988, Austria had 270 kidney transplants with 1,116 patients waiting, 46 heart transplants with 15
patients waiting, 32 liver transplants with 10 patients waiting, 3 lung transplants with 8 patients waiting,
and 8 pancreas transplants with 12 patients waiting.[53]
Presumed Consent wreaks havoc on medical ethics
Rodriguez 11 (Sara Naomi Rodriguez, J.D. Florida International University School of Law, “No Means
No, But Silence Means Yes? The Policy and Constitutionality of the Recent State Proposals for Opt-Out
Organ Donation Laws” Florida International University Law Review, 7 FIU L. Rev. 149. Fall, 2011.
Accessed on Lexus Nexus 8/31/14)
Of the numerous bioethical concerns raised by presumed consent laws, perhaps the two most
significant, from the perspective of the modern medical establishment, are the lack of explicit informed
consent n170 and the risks posed by procuring organs and tissues from donors with unknown social
histories. n171 The modern-day requirement of explicit informed consent as a condition precedent to
medical treatment and research is an important one. n172 Nothing better illustrates this point than its
historical roots. In particular, two atrocities of the twentieth century are responsible for the mandate of
explicit informed consent - the Tuskegee Syphilis Study n173 and the Holocaust. n174 Both events
revealed modern [*172] medicine's potential for abuse, especially with respect to those who are
marginalized in society. n175 The subsequent outcries for better protections of human subjects of
treatment and/or research eventually led to the regulations mandating the use and documentation of
explicit informed consent in such activities today. n176 Some in the medical community also express
concern about the "quality" of tissues and organs procured by way of presumed consent. n177 They
point to the lax health requirements for presumed consent donors and the fact that presumed consent
statutes typically "do not mandate that the social histories [of donors] be obtained." n178 These
shortfalls, combined with the "lifestyles of some likely presumed consent donors," n179 can lead to the
transmission of communicable diseases from donor to recipient. n180 Obviously, such an outcome
would be contrary to the paramount justification for organ donation and transplantation - that of saving
a life. Thus, both the lack of explicit informed consent and the potentially subpar quality of tissues and
organs procured by way of presumed consent present significant medical ethics barriers to the
widespread implementation of presumed consent laws in the United States.
Presumed consent can’t solve wait-lists, unethical and rollback
Blair & Kaserman, 1991 (Roger D. Blair and David L. Kaserman SUMMER, 1991 The Economics and
Ethics of Alternative Cadaveric Organ Procurement Policies 8 Yale J. on Reg. 403 Lexis)
Presumed consent is not free of criticism. Most importantly, it does not appear to remove the organ
shortage. Stuart, Veith, and Cranford n117 report that those countries with presumed consent statutes
continue to experience shortages, which they attribute to the absence of appropriate incentives for
hospital-based physicians and nurses to participate fully. n118 There are, however, other problems with
presumed consent. First, it is exploitive in the sense that many people are reluctant to expressly revoke
consent, which is however necessary if one does not want the organs harvested. n119 To the extent
that presumed consent works because people hesitate to object to something that they do not want
done, this policy has an unsound foundation. Second, presumed consent may also exploit ignorance or
temporary confusion. Most organs are harvested from accident victims. Their families may not take the
affirmative step of objecting to organ removal at that critical point when a loved one dies either because
they are unaware of the imminent removal of the organs or because they do not think about it in their
time of grief. n120 Third, presumed consent raises some thorny constitutional issues. n121 Jaffe
contends that under the Due Process Clause presumed consent will not afford patients and their families
adequate notice and an opportunity for objecting. n122 Furthermore, under the Takings Clause, the
state must provide just compsenation. n123 Ordinarily, just compensation means fair market value.
n124 If that is the case, money is going to change hands anyway and we may as well rely upon market
forces.
Presumed consent can’t solve organ shortage, it’s not popular, and legalization is a
better policy option
Rodriguez 11 (Sara Naomi Rodriguez, J.D. Florida International University School of Law, “No Means
No, But Silence Means Yes? The Policy and Constitutionality of the Recent State Proposals for Opt-Out
Organ Donation Laws” Florida International University Law Review, 7 FIU L. Rev. 149. Fall, 2011.
Accessed on Lexus Nexus 8/31/14)
Is presumed consent the answer to the organ shortage crisis in the United States? And even if it is, is it
an answer that will be acceptable to the American people? Moreover, considering the inequities that
have plagued presumed consent laws thus far, is it a just answer? As things stand right now, the answer
to all of these questions is most likely no. The American people cherish their autonomy and privacy too
much to view presumed consent laws as anything other than a direct affront to their personal liberty.
And while the American courts may be more receptive to presumed consent laws as a valid exercise of
the state police powers, they inevitably will have to deal with some very sticky constitutional issues
should state-wide opt-out systems become a reality. To be sure, there are alternatives. As offensive as
some Americans may find the idea of offering financial incentives or remuneration for donor organs,
such options may prove more palatable and consistent with American values than presumed consent.
Reciprocity also seems promising. Further, increasing the organ donation rates may be as simple as
increasing education and public awareness about organ donation. In light of the values at stake, the
alternatives must be worth exploring. The future for presumed consent organ donation laws in the
United States is uncertain. However, the controversy surrounding them is not. And yet the states seem
undeterred in their quest to be the first in the nation to boast an opt-out organ donation system. Time
will only tell.
DA
3rd Party Candidates in Key States Ensure Democrat Win
Rafferty 10/2
First published October 2nd 2014, 3:14 pm, John Raffertty , NBC News, “Long Shot Candidates Could
Threaten GOP Chances to Take Senate,” http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/long-shotcandidates-could-threaten-gop-chances-take-senate-n217066, web.
Republicans hoping to win back the Senate in November have been nervously monitoring the YouTube
channel of a North Carolina pizza delivery man. That’s because pizza man, craft beer aficionado and
Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate Sean Haugh has been winning over a small but
important fraction of voters using homemade videos in place of million-dollar ad buys.
While there is little chance Haugh will win the race, polling shows it is possible he
could end up siphoning off enough support from Republican candidate Thom Tillis to
tip the election in favor of Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan. augh is one of a series of
libertarian and independent candidates appearing on the ballots of hotly contested Senate races taking
place throughout the country. With a number of races expected to be close this November,
Republicans worry that the few percentage points a Libertarian candidate may take
from the GOP could cost the party in key states -- and even prevent them from
winning the six seats they need to take control of the Senate.
Americans Support Compensation for Organ Donation
Hensley 12
SCOTT HENSLEY, May 16, 2012 3:00 AM ET, NPR, “Poll: Americans Show Support For Compensation Of
Organ Donors,” http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/16/152498553/poll-americans-showsupport-for-compensation-of-organ-donors, web.
So we asked 3,000 adults across the country as part of the NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll, and here's
what they told us. If compensation took the form of credits for health care needs, about 60 percent of
Americans would support it. Tax credits and tuition reimbursement were viewed favorably by 46
percent and 42 percent, respectively. Cash for organs was seen as OK by 41 percent of respondents.
Among people who said some form of compensation was acceptable, 72 percent said it should come
from health insurers, followed by private charities at 62 percent and the federal government at 44
percent. As it was, we asked about three different donations, and the results came in about the same.
About 87 percent of respondents in favor of compensation though it was OK for kidneys. About 85
percent felt that way about livers, and 83 percent for bone marrow. It seems worth noting that the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March affirmed an earlier decision that compensating people for marrow
cells drawn from their blood wouldn't run afoul of the federal law banning payment for organ donations.
OK, so let's say donors could be compensated. How much should it be? Thirty-seven percent of
respondents said it should be less than $10,000, and 27 percent said it should be more than $10,000 and
less than $25,000. Finally, we asked if there is a difference between compensating people for organ
donations compared with buying them outright. Around 40 percent don't see one. Sixty percent of
people said compensation isn't the same thing as a purchase.
Legalization Reaches across the Aisle with support
(ANTHONY GREGORY, NOV 9 2011, WHY LEGALIZAING ORGAN SALES WOULD HELP
SAVE LIVES END VIOLENCE, THE ATLANTIC )
Last month, New Yorker Levy Izhak Rosenbaum pled guilty in federal court to the crime of facilitating illegal kidney transplants. It has been deemed the first proven case of black market organ trafficking in the United States. His
lawyers argue that his lawbreaking was benevolent: "The transplants were successful and the donors and recipients are now leading full and healthy lives." Indeed, why are organ sales illegal? Donors of blood, semen, and eggs, and
The very idea of legalization might sound gruesome
to most people, but it shouldn't, especially since research shows it would save lives. In the
United States, where the 1984 National Organ Transplantation Act prohibits compensation for organ donating, there are only about 20,000 kidneys every year for the approximately 80,000 patients on the waiting
volunteers for medical trials, are often compensated. Why not apply the same principle to organs?
list. In 2008, nearly 5,000 died waiting. A global perspective shows how big the problem is. "Millions of people suffer from kidney disease, but in 2007 there were just 64,606 kidney-transplant operations in the entire world,"
. Almost every other country has
prohibitions like America's. In Iran, however, selling one's kidney for profit is legal. There
are no patients anguishing on the waiting list. The Iranians have solved their kidney
shortage by legalizing sales. Many will protest that an organ market will lead to exploitation and unfair advantages for the rich and powerful. But these are the characteristics of the current
according to George Mason University professor and Independent Institute research director Alexander Tabarrok, writing in the Wall Street Journal
illicit organ trade. Moreover, as with drug prohibition today and alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, pushing a market underground is the way to make it rife with violence and criminality. In Japan, for the right price, you can buy livers
and kidneys harvested from executed Chinese prisoners. Three years ago in India, police broke up an organ ring that had taken as many as 500 kidneys from poor laborers. The World Health Organization estimates that the black
market accounts for 20 percent of kidney transplants worldwide. Everywhere from Latin America to the former Soviet Republics, from the Philippines to South Africa, a huge network has emerged typified by threats, coercion,
. Although not every black market transaction is exploitative -- demonstrating that organ sales, in and of themselves, are
not the problem -- the most unsavory parts of the trade can be attributed to the fact that it is illegal .
Witnessing the horror stories, many are calling on governments to crack down even more
severely. Unfortunately, prohibition drives up black-market profits, turns the market over
to organized crime, and isolates those harmed in the trade from the normal routes of
recourse. Several years ago, transplant surgeon Nadley Hakim at St. Mary's Hospital in London pointed out that "this trade is going on anyway, why not
intimidation, extortion, and shoddy surgeries
have a controlled trade where if someone wants to donate a kidney for a particular price, that would be acceptable? If it is done safely, the donor will not
suffer."
Bringing the market into the open is the best way to ensure the trade's appropriate activity. Since the stakes would be very high, market forces and social pressure would ensure that people are not intimidated or defrauded.
In the United States, attitudes are not so casual as to allow gross degeneracy. Enabling a process by which consenting people engage in open transactions would mitigate the exploitation of innocent citizens and underhanded dealing
by those seeking to skirt the law.
The most fundamental case for legalizing organ sales -- an appeal to civil
liberty -- has proven highly controversial. Liberals like to say, "my body, my choice," and conservatives claim to favor
free markets, but true self-ownership would include the right to sell one's body parts, and genuine
free enterprise would imply a market in human organs. In any event, studies show that this has become a matter of life and death. Perhaps the key to progress is
. In 2008, six experts took on this issue is an Oxford-style debate hosted by National
Public Radio. By the end, those in the audience who favored allowing the market climbed
from 44 to 60 percent. Yet, the organ trade continues to operate in the shadows and questionable activities occur in the medical establishment under the color of law. Even today, doctors sometimes
more widespread exposure to the facts
legally harvest organ tissue from dead patients without consent. Meanwhile, thousands are perishing and even more are suffering while we wait for the system to change. The truly decent route would be to allow people to withhold or
give their organs freely, especially upon death, even if in exchange for money. Thousands of lives would be saved. Once again,
humanitarianism is best served by the respect
for civil liberty, and yet we are deprived both, with horribly unfortunate consequences, just to
maintain the pretense of state-enforced propriety.
Plan is too late to change election outcome – normal means
Senate Historical Office 2003
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/ExtraSessions.pdf EXTRAORDINARY
SESSIONS OF CONGRESS --A Brief History—
The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution marked a watershed in the history of "extraordinary" or
special sessions of Congress. Prior to that amendment's ratification in 1933, Congress did not meet until
the first Monday in December. Therefore presidents, when they deemed it necessary, called Congress
into extraordinary session before the regularly scheduled session. Since 1933, such sessions have been
held after the regular session. The Constitution provided that the president "may, on extraordinary
occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them." On forty-six occasions between 1791 and 1933,
presidents called the Senate alone into special session (see Table V-L). Most of these special sessions
met in March (since presidents were inaugurated on March 4) to confirm the president's nominations to
the cabinet. Four times presidents called the Senate back to consent to the ratification of a treaty. On
twenty-seven additional occasions, presidents have called both the Senate and House into extraordinary
session to deal with such matters of great urgency as war, economic crisis, and critical legislation.
Twenty-three of these sessions took place before the Twentieth Amendment, when Congress was
routinely out of session between March and December. These extraordinary sessions included James
Madison's calling upon Congress to convene during the War of 1812, Abraham Lincoln's calling Congress
into session to deal with the secession of the southern states, and Franklin Roosevelt's calling of
Congress for what became known as the "First Hundred Days" of the New Deal. Since 1933, presidents
have exercised this option only four times. Franklin Roosevelt called the 75th Congress back in October
1937 in an unsuccessful attempt to enact wages and hours legislation, and again he summoned the 76th
Congress in September 1939 to pass neutrality legislation in response to the outbreak of war in Europe.
During both sessions of the 80th Congress, in October 1947 and July 1948, President Harry Truman
called Congress back in extraordinary session to enact domestic legislation. Roosevelt's special sessions
took place after the Congress had adjourned sine die and therefore both the 75th and 76th Congresses
had three sessions. But during the 80th Congress, when the White House and Congress were controlled
by different parties, and during a period when there was no vice president, Congress did not adjourn
sine die. Instead, it stood adjourned until December 31 of each year and empowered the president pro
tempore and majority leader of the Senate and the Speaker and majority leader of the House to "notify
the Members of the Senate and the House, respectively, to reassemble whenever, in their opinion, the
public interest shall warrant it," a precaution taken in the event something happened to the president.
Therefore, both of Truman's special sessions were counted simply as extensions of the first and second
session of the 80th Congress.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 1, 2014
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/10/01/Recurring-recess-Congress-takes-fiveweeks-off-and-now-seven-more/stories/201410040005Recurring recess: Congress takes five weeks off
and now seven more
Federal lawmakers went into recess on Sept. 19 and will return to Washington on Nov. 12, a week after
the midterm election. That’s the earliest Congress has recessed before an election in over 50 years. The
seven weeks off follows the five-week vacation that House and Senate members took in August.
Obama already has cover on Keystone- Senate vote- even if he vetoes Congress will
override
Cronin 3-25 [Melissa Cronin 3-25-2013 “Keystone XL Pipeline Gets Giant Fist Bump From Senate”
http://nyulocal.com/city/2013/03/25/keystone-xl-pipeline-gets-giant-fist-bump-from-senate/]
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline inched
closer up the political ladder last week. And with a big victory in the Senate,
it seems the controversial project is headed straight for the Oval Office. The Senate endorsed the polemic oil pipeline last Friday for
the first time, approving an amendment proposed by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), which passed by a margin of 62 to 37.¶
Seventeen Democrats and all 45 Republicans voted yes to a budget revision in support of the 1,700-mile pipeline. But the vote itself, though
influential to President Obama’s upcoming decision on the undertaking, was non-binding and results in no immediate action.¶ As part of the
Senate’s “vote-a-rama,” the measure was meant to open a dialogue about the pipeline’s construction, which has become a source of heated
debate in the past year.¶ “I think it
shows strong support for the project,” Hoeven said to the AP. “I think where we are is the
president needs to move forward and approve it, and I think if he doesn’t, we’ve shown there’s approval to do it
Congressionally.”
Senate vote provides sufficient cover already
Hymas 3-23 [Lisa Hymas 3-23-2013 “Senate gives a big, fat thumbs-up to Keystone XL” Grist
http://grist.org/news/senate-gives-a-big-fat-thumbs-up-to-keystone-xl/]
The vote was non-binding but all too telling. On Friday, the U.S. Senate voted 62 to 37 in favor of building the
Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, with 17 Democrats joining all of the Republicans. It was just an amendment to a budget
plan that won’t even be going to the president’s desk, but it shows that the political class in D.C. views the
pipeline very favorably — and believes voters view it very favorably too.
Retrenchment kills the perception that the pivot is durable – tanks deterrence cred
Paul Eckert 6-15-2012; analyst for Reuters, Analysis: Obama's Asia "pivot" advances, but obstacles await
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-usa-pacific-pivot-idUSBRE85E1B420120615
"The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior
Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. Washington's
intentions
aside, U.S. political gridlock, fiscal deficits and slow economic growth compared to China raise doubts in
the region about American staying power. "The United States needs lots of partners because its own capabilities are in
a sense in relative decline," said McKinley from the Australian National University.
Chinese modernization makes regional containment inevitable
Paul Eckert 6-15-2012; analyst for Reuters, Analysis: Obama's Asia "pivot" advances, but obstacles await
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-usa-pacific-pivot-idUSBRE85E1B420120615
For now, many nations in Asia have welcomed the U.S. pivot despite the danger of antagonizing Beijing,
said Ross Babbage, a defense analyst and founder of the Kokoda Foundation, an independent security policy unit in Canberra, Australia.
"What you are
seeing is key players in the region playing their cards differently," he said. Australia and
other traditional U.S. allies have publicly backed Washington's new strategy, while others, such as Vietnam,
have quietly but enthusiastically sought closer ties to counter China's "turbo-charged" military
expansion, Babbage said. Threatened by China's growing assertiveness, Manila sees Washington's new Asia
policy as "essential to ameliorate its growing security dilemma," said Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Center for
Intelligence and National Security Studies of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.
No Asia pivot – unreliable allies, domestic politics, retrenchment, and weak
commitments
Paul Eckert 6-15-2012; analyst for Reuters, Analysis: Obama's Asia "pivot" advances, but obstacles await
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-usa-pacific-pivot-idUSBRE85E1B420120615
(Reuters) - An intense fortnight of top-level U.S.
engagement with Asian countries from powerful India to tiny Singapore has
highlighted President Barack Obama's seriousness about reasserting American power across the Pacific - but also the
obstacles he faces. Even as a conflict elsewhere, in Syria, worsened dramatically this month, the Obama administration's top officials spent
much of their face-time with Asian colleagues. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta toured Singapore, Vietnam and India; Obama hosted Philippine
President Benigno Aquino at the White House; and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed counterparts from Cambodia, Thailand, India
and South Korea. Virtually
every country on the list is a potential friction point between the United States and a
rising China, and many share Washington's concern about Beijing's increasing economic and military
influence. "All of this happening at the same time does a very good job of conveying the message that we are paying attention to the
region, that it's of great importance to us and that we intend to focus on it even more," said Michael Mazza, a security expert at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington. But meetings and messaging may be the easy part, Mazza and other analysts say. China's rapid military
build-up and its tough stance on territorial disputes with weaker Southeast Asian neighbors has inadvertently given a boost to Obama's
enhanced Asia strategy, variously called a pivot, a refocus or a rebalancing. But ahead
still lies the harder work of matching
the expectations of Washington's partners - including mustering the political will to overcome U.S. fiscal
deficits and dispelling a growing sense that the United States is declining while China rises. U.S. policy
also has to factor in historical ambivalence about the United States in India and several other regional
democracies, as well as political disarray in long-time ally Japan. Countries with troubling human rights
records like Vietnam and Cambodia have limited appeal in the U.S. Congress, while leaders of these
states see political risks in getting too close to Washington. And the U.S. strategy, while drawing some
verbal fire from China, has yet to be tested in a serious way. That might happen if, for example, the Philippines' ongoing
showdown with Beijing over contested shoals in the South China Sea were to deteriorate into a military conflict that invoked U.S. Mutual
Defense Treaty obligations to Manila.
Multiple factors make Asia war unlikely
Vannarith 10—Executive Director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. PhD in Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific U (Chheang, Asia Pacific Security
Issues: Challenges and Adaptive Mechanism, http://www.cicp.org.kh/download/CICP%20Policy%20brief/CICP%20Policy%20brief%20No%203.pdf)
Some people look to China for economic and strategic interests while others still stick to the US. Since, as a human nature, change is not widely acceptable due to the high level of
uncertainty. It is therefore logical to say that most of the regional leaders prefer to see the status quo of security architecture in the Asia Pacific Region in which US is the hub of
security provision. But it is impossible to preserve the status quo since China needs to strategically outreach to the wider region in order to get necessary resources especially energy and
raw materials to maintain her economic growth in the home country. It is understandable that China needs to have stable high economic growth of about 8 percent GDP growth per year
for her own economic and political survival. Widening development gap and employment are the two main issues facing China. Without China, the world will not enjoy peace, stability,
and development. China is the locomotive of global and regional economic development and contributes to global and regional peace and stability. It is understandable that China is
struggling to break the so-called containment strategy imposed by the US since the post Cold War. Whether this tendency can lead to the greater strategic division is still unknown.
Nevertheless, many observers agree that whatever changes may take place, a multi-polar world and multilateralism prevail. The reasons or logics supporting multilateralism are mainly
based on the fact that no one country can really address the security issues embedded with international dimension, no one country has the capacity to adapt and adopt to new changes
alone, and it needs cooperation and coordination among the nation states and relevant stakeholders including the private sector and civil societies. Large scale interstate
war or
armed conflict is unthinkable in the region due to the high level of interdependency and democratization. It is believed that economic interdependency can
reduce conflicts and prevent war. Democracy can lead to more transparency, accountability, and participation that can reduce collective fears and create more confidence and trust
among the people in the region. In
addition, globalism and regionalism are taking the center stage of national and foreign policy of many
governments in the region except North Korea. The combination of those elements of peace is necessary for peace and stability in the region
and those elements are present and being improved in this region.
K
Role of the ballot is to evaluate effects of the plan- topicality & specificity justify
- neg RTB's self-serving & decontextualize then exclude 9 mins,- voter & new
answers
Negating is about disproving the resolution by showing a competitive policy option is better than the
aff’s topical example – discursive arguments and non-policy alternatives don’t do this. Our argument is a
voter
Our Interp is more educational.
Michael Ignatieff, pub. date: 2004, Carr Prof. of human rights @ Harvard, Lesser Evils. p. 20-1
As for moral perfectionism, this would be the doctrine that a liberal state should never have truck with dubious moral means and
should spare its officials the hazard of having to decide between lesser and greater evils. A moral perfectionist position also holds
that states can spare their officials this hazard simply by adhering to the universal moral standards set out in human rights
conventions and the laws of war. There are two problems with a perfectionist stance, leaving aside the question of whether it is
realistic. The first is that
articulating nonrevocable, nonderogable moral standards is relatively easy. The problem is deciding
how to apply them in specific cases. What is the line between interrogation and torture, between targeted killing and unlawful
assassination, between preemption and aggression? Even when legal and moral distinctions between these are clear in the
abstract,
abstractions are less than helpful when political leaders have to choose between them in practice.
Furthermore, the problem with perfectionist standards is that they contradict each other. The same person who shudders, rightly, at the prospect of torturing a suspect might be prepared to kill the same suspect in a preemptive
attack on a terrorist base. Equally, the perfectionist commitment to the right to life might preclude such attacks altogether and restrict our response to judicial pursuit of offenders through process of law. Judicial responses to the
problem of terror have their place, but they are no substitute for military operations when terrorists possess bases, training camps, and heavy weapons. To stick to a perfectionist commitment to the right to life when under terrorist
attack might achieve moral consistency at the price of leaving us defenseless in the face of evildoers. Security, moreover, is a human right, and thus respect for one right might lead us to betray another.
Ontology first is logically bankrupt
Jackson 2010 (Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Associate Professor of International Relations in the School
of International Service at the American University in Washington, DC, 2010, “The Conduct of Inquiry in
International Relations: Philosophy of Science and its Implications for the Study of World Politics,”
ebook)
However, I do not think that putting ontology first is the panacea that many seem to think it is. For one
thing, if one puts ontology first then one is, at least provisionally, committed to a particular (if revisable)
account of what the world is made up of: co-constituted agents and structures, states interacting under
conditions of anarchy, global class relations, or what have you. This is a rather large leap to make on
anyone’s authority, let alone that of a philosopher of science. Along these lines, it is unclear what if any
warrant we could provide for most ontological claims if ontology in this sense were to always “come
first.” If someone makes an ontological claim about something existing in the world, then we are faced
with an intriguing epistemological problem of how possibly to know whether that claim is true, and the
equally intriguing problem of selecting the proper methods to use in evaluating the claim (Chernoff
2009b, 391). But if epistemology and method are supposed to be fitted to ontology, then we are stuck
with techniques and standards designed to respond to the specificity of the object under investigation.
This problem is roughly akin to using state-centric measurements of cross-border transactions to
determine whether globalization is eroding state borders, because the very object under investigation—
“state borders”—is presupposed by the procedures of data-collection, meaning that the answer will
always, and necessarily, assert the persistence of the state.
Perm do both
Perm do the alt in every other instance
Perm do the plan then the alt—either it’s legit or the alt’s not durable enough to
solve
Judges choose reps to best test plan - debate dialectic sufficient filter for
knowledge production and epistemology- prefer specific warrants over vague
buzzwords- Value requires existence
Ban on organ sales is unethical and paternalistic
Mol no date (Marianne Mol, Global Medicine magazine, Issue 11,“Organ trade: a win-win situation
or exploitation in disguise? Is legalizing commercial kidney donation medically-ethically justifiable?”
http://globalmedicine.nl/issues/issue-11/organ-trade-a-win-win-situation-or-exploitation-in-disguise/)
First, it is unethical itself to let patients die of a treatable disease. Besides, many poor people might
benefit from it. With the fight against poverty still far from reaching its goal, they should be provided
with alternatives to ameliorate their financial situation. A regulated market in kidneys is an example of
such an alternative. Moreover, the fact that people are poor does not exclude them from the right to
autonomy. The poor should have the freedom to sell a kidney and to forbid this would be paternalism at
its worst form. Therefore, numerous experts on medical ethics are in favor of commercial kidney
donation. Janet Radcliffe-Richards, professor of practical philosophy at Oxford Uehiro Centre, stated
that we desperately need organs, some people desperately need money; there is going to be an
exchange and I would rather it were a legal ex-change that we could control than a black market
exchange that we can not.
No difference between selling organs and selling labor in the squo
Wilkinson, Stephen, 2011 "The Sale of Human Organs" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall
2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/organs-sale/
Many authors have pointed out that there appears to be no fundamental difference between selling
organs and other widely accepted practices, particularly selling one's own ‘risky labour’ (work that
involves a risk of harm that is the same as or greater than that involved in organ donation) (Harris 1985;
Brecher 1990, 1994; Wilkinson & Garrard 1996). Furthermore, common forms of ‘risky labour’ (coal
mining, deep-sea diving, fire fighting, military service in a just war, etc.) are often more dangerous than
selling a kidney, but are regarded as heroic, rather than condemned; it is seen as just and proper to
reward those who do these things. This difference in attitude cannot be justified in terms of the good
consequences that ‘risky labour’ produces, since the consequences of an organ sale (often, saving a life)
may be just as good or better. Therefore, it is inconsistent to allow people to be paid for ‘risky labour’
while not allowing them to be paid for their organs. Savulescu (2003, 138) makes the point as follows: If
we should be allowed to sell our labour, why not sell the means to that labour? If we should be allowed
to risk damaging our body for pleasure (by smoking or skiing), why not for money which we will use to
realise other goods in life? … or consider the diver. He takes on a job as a deep sea diver which pays him
an extra $30,000 … This loading is paid because the job has higher risks to his life and health. He takes
the job because he likes holidays in expensive exotic locations.
Alt fails- Human nature
Barnhizer 2006 (David Barnhizer, Professor of Law at Ohio State University, Articles Editor of the Ohio
State Law Journal and then served as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow in Colorado
Springs Legal Services Office, a Ford Urban Law Fellow, and a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Law
School, Senior Advisor to the International Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Senior
Fellow for Earth Summit Watch, and General Counsel for the Shrimp Tribunal. He has served as
Executive Director of The Year 2000 Committee, 2006 “waking from sustainability’s “impossible
dream”” Georgetown environmental law review)
Devotees of sustainability pin their hopes on an awakening by an enlightened populace that
will rise up and insist that business and government behave in ways that reflect the idea that
"[a] sustainable society is one that can persist over generations, one that is far-seeing enough,
flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social systems of
support."81 This awakening is not going to happen. There will never be a populist revolution
in the way humans value the environment, social justice, and other matters of moral
consequence. We frequently "talk the talk," but rarely "walk the walk."82 This discrepancy is
partly an individual failure, but it is even more a result of the powerful forces that operate
within our culture. Residents of Western cultures are shaped by the system in which they live.
They will never possess either the clarity of agenda or the political will essential to a coherent
and coordinated shift in behavior due to a combination of ignorance, greed, sloth, and
inundation by political and consumerist propaganda. This combination means there will be no
values shift welling up from the people and demanding the transformation of our systems of
production and resource use.
The alternative is not non- neolib but distorted versions like China’s- the financial
crisis doesn’t doom it
Rogoff 2011 (Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011
Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist at the International Monetary
Fund from 2001 Dec. 2, 2011 Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable? http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/is-modern-capitalism-sustainable-)
CAMBRIDGE – I am often asked if the recent global financial crisis marks the beginning of the
end of modern capitalism. It is a curious question, because it seems to presume that there is a
viable replacement waiting in the wings. The truth of the matter is that, for now at least, the
only serious alternatives to today’s dominant Anglo-American paradigm are other forms of
capitalism. European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with
reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income
distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it – except sustainability. China’s
Darwinian capitalism, with its fierce competition among export firms, a weak social-safety net,
and widespread government intervention, is widely touted as the inevitable heir to Western
capitalism, if only because of China’s huge size and consistent outsize growth rate. Yet China’s
economic system is continually evolving. Indeed, it is far from clear how far China’s political,
economic, and financial structures will continue to transform themselves, and whether China
will eventually morph into capitalism’s new exemplar. In any case, China is still encumbered
by the usual social, economic, and financial vulnerabilities of a rapidly growing lower-income
country. Perhaps the real point is that, in the broad sweep of history, all current forms of
capitalism are ultimately transitional. Modern-day capitalism has had an extraordinary run
since the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago, lifting billions of ordinary people
out of abject poverty. Marxism and heavy-handed socialism have disastrous records by
comparison. But, as industrialization and technological progress spread to Asia (and now to
Africa), someday the struggle for subsistence will no longer be a primary imperative, and
contemporary capitalism’s numerous flaws may loom larger. First, even the leading capitalist
economies have failed to price public goods such as clean air and water effectively. The failure
of efforts to conclude a new global climate-change agreement is symptomatic of the paralysis.
Second, along with great wealth, capitalism has produced extraordinary levels of inequality.
The growing gap is partly a simple byproduct of innovation and entrepreneurship. People do
not complain about Steve Jobs’s success; his contributions are obvious. But this is not always
the case: great wealth enables groups and individuals to buy political power and influence,
which in turn helps to generate even more wealth. Only a few countries – Sweden, for example
– have been able to curtail this vicious circle without causing growth to collapse. A third
problem is the provision and distribution of medical care, a market that fails to satisfy several
of the basic requirements necessary for the price mechanism to produce economic efficiency,
beginning with the difficulty that consumers have in assessing the quality of their treatment.
The problem will only get worse: health-care costs as a proportion of income are sure to rise as
societies get richer and older, possibly exceeding 30% of GDP within a few decades. In health
care, perhaps more than in any other market, many countries are struggling with the moral
dilemma of how to maintain incentives to produce and consume efficiently without producing
unacceptably large disparities in access to care. It is ironic that modern capitalist societies
engage in public campaigns to urge individuals to be more attentive to their health, while
fostering an economic ecosystem that seduces many consumers into an extremely unhealthy
diet. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, 34% of Americans are obese.
Clearly, conventionally measured economic growth – which implies higher consumption –
cannot be an end in itself. Fourth, today’s capitalist systems vastly undervalue the welfare of
unborn generations. For most of the era since the Industrial Revolution, this has not mattered,
as the continuing boon of technological advance has trumped short-sighted policies. By and
large, each generation has found itself significantly better off than the last. But, with the
world’s population surging above seven billion, and harbingers of resource constraints
becoming ever more apparent, there is no guarantee that this trajectory can be maintained.
Financial crises are of course a fifth problem, perhaps the one that has provoked the most soulsearching of late. In the world of finance, continual technological innovation has not
conspicuously reduced risks, and might well have magnified them. In principle, none of
capitalism’s problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a variety of marketbased solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to
internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a
greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving crippling distortions,
by minimizing non-transparent tax expenditures and keeping marginal rates low. Effective
pricing of health care, including the pricing of waiting times, could encourage a better balance
between equality and efficiency. Financial systems could be better regulated, with stricter
attention to excessive accumulations of debt. Will capitalism be a victim of its own success in
producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of capitalism’s demise might
be, the possibility seems remote. Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health
problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed,
capitalism’s future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.
Sustainable capitalism now
Economist 2012 (The Economist, February 16, 2012, “Blood, Gore and capitalism,”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/02/sustainable-capitalism)
THESE are busy days for Al Gore. In late January, the former vice-president turned climatechange warrior took to the high seas, leading a luxury cruise-cum-fact-finding mission to
Antarctica for a bunch of billionaires and policy wonks. They were to see for themselves the
melting ice shelf and enjoy what remains of the spectacular views. Then, on February 15th, he
was in New York to launch a manifesto (pdf) for what he calls “sustainable capitalism”. The
manifesto is published by the non-profit arm of Generation Investment Management, a fundmanagement company Mr Gore launched in 2004 with David Blood, an ex-partner at Goldman
Sachs. The company focuses on firms with what it calls sustainable business models. Unlike Mr
Gore's seafaring adventures, which generated a lively blogging war between Mr Gore,
shipmates such as Richard Branson, and their right-wing critics, the manifesto is unlikely to
set anyone's pulse racing. Yet its very dullness is a virtue, for it reflects the practical lessons
learnt from several years of trying to make a success of the investment business, where the
devil lies very much in the boring detail. The big picture outlined by Messrs Blood and Gore is
hardly novel. An obsession with short-term profits rather than sustainable long-term profits
led to the apotheosis of unsustainable capitalism—the crash of September 2008—and the
subsequent bail-out of the financial system (though in this case, a lack of environmental
concern was the least of the unsustainability problems). Like many people, they had expected
this crash to be a turning point, after which capitalism would be reorientated towards the long
term. In the event, this did not happen. Indeed, says Mr Gore, the “conversation about
sustainability has if anything gone backwards”. To help remedy this, the manifesto suggests
several changes to the way the capitalist system works. (It does not go into detail about other
farther-reaching reforms for which Mr Gore has long advocated, such as putting a price on
carbon.) The sexiest of these, assuming securities law turns you on, is a proposal—already
made elsewhere by organisations such as the Aspen Institute—for “loyalty shares” that pay out
more to investors that have owned them continuously for at least three years. The average
holding period for a share is now seven months, down from several years in the 1990s.
Rewarding longer ownership would require a lot of new legislation, particularly to apply it to
existing firms. Even among those who favour long-termism there is debate about whether
longer ownership is necessarily the same as more effective ownership. Still, it is worth
discussing. Lovers of accountancy may be taken more by two other proposals. One, which
would probably need legislation though could conceivably be introduced without it by
regulators such as America’s Securities and Exchange Commission, is to require all companies
to publish “integrated reports” that would include details of their environmental, social and
governance (ESG) performance alongside their financial returns. Making such reporting
mandatory would be a big step, especially given opposition from the significant number of
firms that say that the science of ESG reporting is too immature to be integrated with financial
reports. A better approach, cited in the manifesto, may be South Africa's new requirement that
firms either publish an integrated report or explain why not. That should stimulate lively
debate in either case. The Blood and Gore manifesto also wants firms to have to account for
assets that might become "stranded" —worth much less—in the event of policy changes such as
the imposition of a price on carbon emissions or higher charges for the use of water. This, the
pair contend, would reveal many companies to be in much worse shape than they now appear,
given plausible scenarios for how policy in these areas might one day develop. This scenarioplanning might seem like a lot of extra work about stuff that is only hypothetical, and thus a
burdensome extra cost. But Mr Blood points out that many firms already apply a price of
carbon internally,¶ for example when evaluating significant investments, as they increasingly
think it likely that governments will impose one. So perhaps it isn't that much more work. A key
issue is whether all this extra information and rewards for loyalty will result in demands for
more sustainable performance from those who own companies. As well as calling for company
bosses to be paid in ways that incentivise sustainable long-term performance, the manifesto
rightly shines a critical light on the pay of fund managers employed by institutional
shareholders such as pension funds. Often, these managers are paid for short-term financial
results, even though the liabilities of those investors—all of our pensions, for instance—are
mostly very long-term. This prompts the thought that institutional investors that incentivise
short-term performance when their liabilities are long-term may be in breach of their fiduciary
duty as managers of other people's money. Indeed, maybe this incentive mismatch could
provide the basis for a lawsuit. Messrs Blood and Gore say they are intrigued by the
possibilities for such litigation to drive change, though they are not inclined to bring it
themselves. But they do want to see the definition of what it means to be a fiduciary expanded
to include an emphasis on sustainable investing. To their critics, Messrs Blood and Gore
simply want to weigh capitalism down with political correctness. Yet they insist that a focus on
firms that deliver sustainable results is actually the best long-term investment strategy. That,
after all, is why they created Generation. Unlike earlier "green" and "ethical" investment funds,
which screened out "bad" companies, effectively sacrificing financial return for purity,
Generation set out to outperform the market by finding firms that it expected to do better than
average over the long term.
Tech solves
Huggins 2012 (Laura E. Huggins, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and director of
development at PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center—a think tank in Bozeman,
Montana, that focuses on market solutions to environmental problems, 2012 “A Doom Deferred”
http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/105756)
The authors of the Times op-ed also wrote that “the effects of overpopulation play a part in
practically every daily report of mass human calamity.” Floods, for example, “inundate more
homes as populations expand into floodplains. Such extreme events are stoked by climate
change, fueled by increasing carbon emissions from an expanding global population.” These
modern-day predictions are in stark contrast to claims in the same vein from the 1970s. In a
popular 1970 speech at Swarthmore College, for example, well-known ecologist Kenneth Watt
said, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global
mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it
would take to put us into an ice age.” Time has not been gentle with such prophecies. Four
decades later, the world hasn’t come to an end. Most measures of human welfare show the
Earth’s population is better off today than at any other time in human history. Life expectancy
is increasing, per-capita income is rising, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are
cleaner. And concerns about climate change have shifted from cooling to warming since the
1970s. Given past trends, we are right to deny doom-and-gloom claims such as this one in
Harte and Ehrlich’s article: “Perpetual growth is the creed of a cancer cell, not a sustainable
human society.” New ideas and technologies proliferate at a much faster rate than population.
New ideas and technologies proliferate at a much faster rate than population. They depend on
individuals who are free to pursue their own interests and innovate with few constraints. As
Stanford economist Paul Romer put it, “Every generation has perceived the limits to growth
that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were
discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and
ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do
not add up; they multiply.”
Neolib solves the environment
Zey 1997 (Michael Zey, Professor of Management at Montclair State University, 1997, The Futurist,
“The Macroindustrial Era: A New Age of Abundance and Prosperity”, March/April,
http://www.zey.com/Featured_2.htm)
This brings me to one of my major points about the necessity of growth. A recurring criticism
of growth - be it industrial, economic, or technological - centers around its negative
consequences. A good example of this is the tendency of economic and industrial growth to
generate pollution. However, I contend that growth invariably provides solutions to any
problems it introduces. The following examples will illustrate my point. Although economic
growth can initially lead to such problems as pollution and waste, studies show that, after a
country achieves a certain level of prosperity, the pendulum begins to swing back toward
cleaner air and water. In fact, once a nation's per capita income rises to about $4,000 (in 1993
dollars), it produces less of some pollutants per capita. The reason for this is quite simple: Such
a nation can now afford technologies such as catalytic converters and sewage systems that treat
and eliminate a variety of wastes. According to Norio Yamamoto, research director of the
Mitsubishi Research Institute, "We consider any kind of environmental damage to result from
mismanagement of the economy." He claims that the pollution problems of poorer regions such
as eastern Europe can be traced largely to their economic woes. Hence he concludes that, in
order to ensure environmental safety, "we need a sound economy on a global basis." Thus, the
answer to pollution, the supposed outgrowth of progress, ought to be more economic growth.
Such economic growth can be accelerated by any number of actions: the transfer of technology,
the sharing of scientific know-how, and economic investment. The World Bank estimates that
every dollar invested in developing countries will grow to $100 in 50 years. As their wealth
increases, these countries can take all the necessary steps to invest in pollution-free cars,
catalytic converters, and other pollution-free technologies, such as the cleanest of all current
large-scale energy sources, nuclear power. They can also afford to invest in bioremediation the utilization of viruses to literally eat such impurities as oil spills and toxic waste. Russia is
actively growing and exporting microorganisms that eat radioactive and metallic wastes from
such sources as uranium, plutonium, magnesium, and silver.
Neolib Solves War
Hillebrand 2010 Evan E. Hillebrand (Professor of Diplomacy at University of Kentucky and a Senior
Economist for the Central Intelligence Agency) 2010 “Deglobalization Scenarios: Who Wins? Who
Loses?” Global Economy Journal, Volume 10, Issue 2 2010
A long line of writers from Cruce (1623) to Kant (1797) to Angell (1907) to Gartzke (2003) have
theorized that economic interdependence can lower the likelihood of war. Cruce thought that
free trade enriched a society in general and so made people more peaceable; Kant thought that
trade shifted political power away from the more warlike aristocracy, and Angell thought that
economic interdependence shifted cost/benefit calculations in a peace-promoting direction.
Gartzke contends that trade relations enhance transparency among nations and thus help
avoid bargaining miscalculations. There has also been a tremendous amount of empirical
research that mostly supports the idea of an inverse relationship between trade and war. Jack
Levy said that, “While there are extensive debates over the proper research designs for
investigating this question, and while some empirical studies find that trade is associated with
international conflict, most studies conclude that trade is associated with peace, both at the
dyadic and systemic levels” (Levy, 2003, p. 127). There is another important line of theoretical
and empirical work called Power Transition Theory that focuses on the relative power of states
and warns that when rising powers approach the power level of their regional or global leader
the chances of war increase (Tammen, Lemke, et al, 2000). Jacek Kugler (2006) warns that
the rising power of China relative to the United States greatly increases the chances of great
power war some time in the next few decades. The IFs model combines the theoretical and
empirical work of the peacethrough trade tradition with the work of the power transition
scholars in an attempt to forecast the probability of interstate war. Hughes (2004) explains
how he, after consulting with scholars in both camps, particularly Edward Mansfield and
Douglas Lemke, estimated the starting probabilities for each dyad based on the historical
record, and then forecast future probabilities for dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs)
and wars based on the calibrated relationships he derived from the empirical literature. The
probability of a MID, much less a war, between any random dyad in any given year is very low,
if not zero. Paraguay and Tanzania, for example, have never fought and are very unlikely to
do so. But there have been thousands of MIDs in the past and hundreds of wars and many of
the 16,653 dyads have nonzero probabilities. In 2005 the mean probability of a country being
involved in at least one war was estimated to be 0.8%, with 104 countries having a probability
of at least 1 war approaching zero. A dozen countries12, however, have initial probabilities over
3%. model predicts four great power wars in the deglobalization scenario vs. 2 in the
globalization scenario.16 The globalization scenario projects that the probability for war will
gradually decrease through 2035 for every country—but not every dyad--that had a significant
(greater than 0.5% chance of war) in 2005 (Table 6). The decline in prospects for war stems
from the scenario’s projections of rising levels of democracy, rising incomes, and rising trade
interdependence—all of these factors figure in the algorithm that calculates the probabilities.
Not all dyadic war probabilities decrease, however, because of the power transition mechanism
that is also included in the IFs model. The probability for war between China and the US, for
example rises as China’s power13 rises gradually toward the US level but in these calculations
the probability of a China/US war never gets very high.14 Deglobalization raises the risks of
war substantially. In a world with much lower average incomes, less democracy, and less trade
interdependence, the average probability of a country having at least one war in 2035 rises
from 0.6% in the globalization scenario to 3.7% in the deglobalization scenario. Among the
top-20 war-prone countries, the average probability rises from 3.9% in the globalization
scenario to 7.1% in the deglobalization scenario. The model estimates that in the
deglobalization scenario there will be about 10 wars in 2035, vs. only 2 in the globalization
scenario15. Over the whole period, 2005-2035, the IV. Winners and Losers Deglobalization in
the form of reduced trade interdependence, reduced capital flows, and reduced migration has
few positive effects, based on this analysis with the International Futures Model. Economic
growth is cut in all but a handful of countries, and is cut more in the non-OECD countries than
in the OECD countries. Deglobalization has a mixed impact on equality. In many non-OECD
countries, the cut in imports from the rest of the world increases the share of manufacturing
and in 61 countries raises the share of income going to the poor. But since average productivity
goes down in almost all countries, this gain in equality comes at the expense of reduced
incomes and increased poverty in almost all countries. The only winners are a small number of
countries that were small and poor and not well integrated in the global economy to begin
with—and the gains from deglobalization even for them are very small. Politically,
deglobalization makes for less stable domestic politics and a greater likelihood of war. The
likelihood of state failure through internal war, projected to diminish through 2035 with
increasing globalization, rises in the deglobalization scenario particularly among the nonOECD democracies. Similarly, deglobalization makes for more fractious relations among states
and the probability for interstate war rises.
1AR