"I work for a biotech research company focused on developing pharmaceutical treatments for neurological diseases. I'm also a lay Buddhist who believes in the principle of right livelihood (i.e., work that brings true benefit to oneself and/or others). While I'm proud of working to develop treatments that could ease suffering for many people, I am also troubled by the enormous amount of material waste and animal experimentation needed to conduct this research. Every day in the lab I generate trash cans full of plastic waste as well as chemical and biological waste that gets sent to incinerators (polluting the air) and to landfills (not being recycled). I also have to sacrifice mice and rats on a weekly basis to test the efficacy of potential drugs before administering them to humans in clinical trials.
Thus my dilemma: Do the ends justify the means? Is the human suffering I will potentially alleviate worth the present environmental damage and animal sacrifice? I'm still fairly young and able to make a career change, but I want to be sure that I'm doing the right thing. My goal is to heal, in whatever capacity I can, so would it be better for me to go into alternative healing professions? Ones that don't pose similar moral problems? I've considered careers in alternative medicine, nutrition, homoeopathy, etc., but there are some human ailments that these disciplines just cannot address (like those based on genetics). While the pharmaceutical industry does have many problems (waste generation, animal testing, exorbitant costs for prescription drugs, shady marketing), it still has produced scores of drugs over the last hundred years that have greatly benefited human health.
So I'm stuck. Any thoughts on how I can clear my conscience or if I should change my livelihood?"
Thanks,
Burdened Biologist
Go here to seek an enlightened reply.
1 comment:
Post a Comment