Impact of Biotechnology on Modern Medicine

Throughout history we have discovered many great achievements, some may argue that most of them are not ethical, yet we continue to evolve as a society. What is the first thing you think about medical biotechnology? According to Fereidoun Mahboudi, “A standard definition of biotechnology was achieved in the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) – ‘any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives there of, to make or modify products and processes for specific use’” .

From what I understand this means that biotechnology is the use of biology to better understand a human works and what are other techniques to help develop a better understanding how the body reacts to certain medical disease or disorders. An optimistic would say that this would be a good achievement for science to develop, but a pessimistic would say that why would we need this technology? What if someone would be injured? In general, we see within every discovery there will always be someone to oppose it or either continue to live with the evolution of society as a whole. Society will either evolve with technology or stay behind. Some of the major impacts that medical biotechnology may include; better health, will it be unethical, how will society react, will it be affordable, and security.

First, everyone in this society wants to be in better health, but what does it actually mean to be in better health? Society has its own views on better health, some may say that being fit and exercising is a better use of the body and to be in better health. Other may argue that eve thought they are health and have a balanced diet, but their body has a sort of disorder that acts as an obstacle to have a better life choice in their health. Little things like this make the human not know what the true meaning of how a body is supposed to be in better health.

The use of biotechnology can help many disease or even disorders. Some of the most common forms of medical biotechnology are, “from then, new and more affective vaccines, drugs and diagnostic tools have been developed by medical biotechnology for cancer, autoimmune disease, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis” . This is a better understanding of how medical biotechnology has help society as an overall and how it can continue to help. I believe that using medical biotechnology can impact society overall because although there are many unknowns to this biotechnology we have seen a great evolution to better understand how the body reacts to using medical biotechnology.

Secondly, when it comes to new and improved technology there always comes someone that argues if this technology is ethical. In general, when someone asking what does ethical mean? Ethics means a branch of philosophy that may deal with morals and their principles and some may argue that ethics and morals are both based on culture . Culture is seen to be different within each household that the word culture is different to everyone in society. The usage of medical biotechnology is easily developed to become something that is unethical, “commit themselves to keeping pace with scientific advances, they should not fall pray to the trap of captivating biotechnological victories by ignoring their ethical-social responsibilities” .

Some pessimistic person may argue that medical biotechnology has more controversies then if it may actually do any good. Some of the ways that medical biotechnology can be unethical may include but not limited to using the biotechnology for weaponizing something this technology can be easily accessible and harm society rather than doing good. With every newly discovered technology there will always be the question if this product is ethical? Although everyone is entitled to their opinion and their way of thinking only thing that is left is, will they evolve with everyone or stay behind?

Next, how will society react to the usage of medical biotechnology? Although this technology can help many people not many may agree that this technology is beneficial to society. Without having biotechnology then how would we be when we need a vaccine of some sort? What would society do when everyone around was sick? Having these benefits of medical biotechnology has helped society to better understand how the body reacts to certain types of medicine and how this research can help the next person to discover something that was not thought about yet. Some people may think that this technology is in way scientifically objective because as part of this society as humans are easily influenced by emotions and perception from everyone around us rather it comes from close family members to coworkers.

We as humans let our emotions get the better out of us and sometimes that is what makes us not go to our full protentional. According to Nastasia Belc, “In the long term, biotechnology will have a profound impact on our perceptions of health and age; it will increase our capacity to protect the planet and material science and bioengineering with an important impact on the environment and on the entire world economy” (Belc, 5). This quote impacted me and made me realize that as a society we depend on biotechnology in ways that we do not actually think about. Thinking back to the years, before this technology was taboo in a way we see how many people suffered to get to where we are as a society. Everything around us is changing and technology will advance further, and medical biotechnology can help society live longer and have a better future overall.

Furthermore, we see that medical biotechnology can help society, better health, and rather it meets the reasoning behind ethics, but someone may ask will this medical biotechnology be affordable to society. In today’s society we hear in the news of newly discoveries and how this research has helped everyone, but we do not see how this new technology will cost everyone. Even today medical biotechnology is quite expensive, simple medicine over the counter can have its costly prices. One may ask how does this research actually cost? Well according to Kenneth Gertz, “Spending on research exceeds $35 billion, and clinical grant spending now tops $11 billion” .

We can see that medical biotechnology can be quite expensive, but the outlook one may see is although this money is a lot, society can see that this could benefit society more and have a better understanding of how this research can help other people in the world. When everyone comes together and understands this medical biotechnology, society will have a better understanding of how the human body is and be aware its reasoning towards certain disorders or diseases. It is quite shocking that total spending of several federal sources, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies have reached nearly $94 billion in only 2008 (Gertz, 32). This is a lot of money to only go into medical biotechnology but what I see is that this money can be used for the greater good, these new discoveries, and research can help society becoming a better living environment overall.

Following, all of this there comes a time when this research maybe accessible quite easily that it can be hacked and given to the public for easier access. So, with that being said what can society do for security? When it comes to security we often do not think about how this medical biotechnology can affect one another. Information about medical biotechnology can be powerful in a way that anyone can easily hack the research and claim them as their own, “Information plays an important role in the development of a country; thus it is essential that measures be taken to ensure and enforce information security”.

On the news we always hear about how research can help someone when they are looking to something similar to the topic, but we rarely hear about the people that hack their way into the research or even plagiarize. Cybercrimes are not often known, but there are said to be many of them by mimicking the way a real scholarly source would look like. (Dadkhah, 32). Situations like this are what makes you wonder of how this research could have a better security, but someone may argue to what extent is this really necessary. Security is important while others disagree. For example, when one goes to the doctor we hope that the doctor will keep the information private, but what would happen if they get hacked and our information is out in the open? Security should have a better development; such as a good algorithm for hacking purposes as well for researchers in medical biotechnology to keep their work in a safe place.

As a conclusion, these are some of the major impacts of how medical biotechnology will change and improve society as an overall. One may wonder how will these new discoveries impact society and how will they react? We see that better health can have an impact in way that we get a better understanding of what the concept of health truly is. Ethics takes a part of medical biotechnology because a scientist should have proper morals, mind, soul, and a clear conscious. We all wonder how society will react to these newly improved medical biotechnologies and we guess that society will evolve with these new discoveries. The cost of the this newly improved technology will always come to mind, but it would be good to weight out the options on which is more important to help understand the human body. Lastly, security will always be around, and someone will always want to take the information and claim it as their own. That is why it is important for anyone to keep their research somewhere safe, rather than to have it out in the open. Overall, medical biotechnology is always changing and improving for the greater good of society, rather society will agree or not.

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