Topic: The Ethics of Experimental Treatments
Country: Portugal
Delegate Name: Ra’Ven Miller
School: Kalamazoo Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Portugal position papers GLIMUN 2014 committees
In the country of Portugal we are very dedicated to the safety of patients that undergo experimental treatments. Our medical associations' statute is, 'To defend ethics and professional qualification in order to assure and respect rights of patients to qualified medicine…' Also including the Portuguese Code of Ethics. Portugal fully supports the idea of a minimum standard of safety or promise prior to authorizing a proposed new treatment. The reason being, we take the well-being of experimental treatment patients in our country to the highest degree. Any experiment whose goal is to advance the progression for cures to diseases, Portugal fully supports. As long as the patients are properly taken care of.
Portugal believes that patients should be informed of the objective, nature, consequences, benefits, risks, alternative diagnosis, and treatment by their treatment provider. If member states and nongovernmental bodies are not informing their patients of those terms then they should allow it for the purpose of security and ethics. The rules that should be followed for experimental treatments are very important and should be reconized by other countries. The United Nations handles the oversight of these new treatments to see if these countries are handling experimental treatments properly.
To ensure the fair and ethical treatment of patients with respect to experimental treatments there must be a balance between the ethics of patients and experimental treatments. In our country we reconize that the need for cures to diseases are crucial and we see to it that people who participate in these experiments receive fair and ethical treatment. We have the up most intent of protecting our patients. Doing these experiments can be dangerous but beneficial to the people. That is why Portugal is so heavily concerned with the process that these experimental treatments go through from development to the actual experiment. There is a cost issue we recognize that but when we weigh the effects that the treatments can have and importantance for the greater good of humanity it is worth it.
