The Epipen's Ethical Case

The EpiPen device automatically injects a drug called epinephrine, which reverses potentially deadly allergic reactions. It is the only device of its kind available in the United States. Millions depend on carrying the device at all times. For decades the EpiPen was available at a low cost until the Mylan Company purchased it in 2007. Since then, the price has risen over 400% creating a public backlash of media reports, social media petitions, and politician’s calling out Mylan executives to explain the reason for the price raise. Lack of compassion and appearance of greed has tarnished the public image of the company. Mylan has begun looking for ways of rebuilding their image by releasing compensation to the public in the form of generic cheaper EpiPens and payment assistance to eligible patients, but it might be too little too late in this current ongoing communication crisis event.

Halloween 2004: Six year old Austin O’Toole received a Snickers Bar, which he devoured in one large bight. Immediately, he began to feel tingling in his lips and a lump in his throat, strangling the air from his lungs. Within minutes, he passed out. Austin awoke hours later in the hospital after suffering anaphylactic shock triggered by an allergic reaction to peanuts. To avert another anaphylaxis attack, Austin always carries an epinephrine injector, which is commonly referred to as an EpiPen. An epinephrine syringe injects adrenaline, a chemical, which thins blood and opens up air passages into the lungs. EpiPen had a longtime monopoly on the epinephrine injector market, but its monopoly recently ended. The EpiPen market failure was produced by inconsistent Food and Drug Administration regulations, which restricted potential competitors from entering the market, causing EpiPen to have a monopoly on the epinephrine injector market. To address the market failure and prevent EpiPen from abusing its monopoly power by raising prices, Congress passed the Combination Product Regulatory Fairness Act, facilitating the FDA combination drug approval process. The bill has resulted in more competitors entering the market, ending EpiPen’s monopoly and forcing EpiPen to offer a more affordable product.

Everybody reaches out of pocket to pay for different prescription drugs. Parents for children, elderly for health conditions, and pet owners for pets, but there is one extensive concern; the price and outcomes. Transiently, it may be common for someone to come out of pocket for some prescriptions, but when people draw out of pocket every time just to pick up a prescription drug, it becomes annoying and upsetting. Pharmaceutical companies like CVS and Walgreens collect over $1,000,000 dollars just from gouging people for medications. According to David Belk (M.D.), Pharmacies buy medication in mass from pharmaceutical corporations and suppliers, then sell for a profit. What everyone is trying to ask the companies though is why. Why would a top-producing company like CVS or Walgreens sell expensive medications to a group of people like the elderly for profit?

In July 2001 Robert R. Courtney’s illegal and highly unethical behavior was brought to the attention of local authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Courtney’s blatant disregard for the trust patients placed in him was evidenced by his daily violations of their rights and expectations while he supposedly provided quality healthcare service. By August 2001, following investigation, the FBI filed 20 federal charges against Courtney that carried a maximum prison sentence of 196 years (United Press International, 2002). $8 million of his assets which were estimated to be in excess of $10 million were frozen to be used as restitution for victims in the criminal case. Following a plea agreement Courtney’s prison

The caring theory was grounded on a humanitarian perspective and is found on a humanistic approach toward human caring programs and experiences. It acknowledges that life with individuals and their community to the surrounding environment are somehow connect and affects wellbeing of everything involved. The nature of the theory caring implies that it embraces reflective investigations as well subjective and interpretative inquiries. The nursing profession uses nursing theories as the framework and foundation for practice.   Many people find nursing theories to be meaningless and of no use to the

The Pharmaceutical industry has been in the spotlight for decades due to the fact that they have a reputation for being unethical in its marketing strategies. In The Washington Post Shannon Brownlee (2008) states, “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow.” This honorable statement is completely lost in today’s world of pharmaceutical marketing tactics. These tactics are often deceptive and biased. Big Pharma consistently forgets their moral purpose and focuses primarily on the almighty dollar. Big Pharma is working on restoring their reputation by reforming their ethical code of conduct.

The following memo was developed through deep reflection on the necessary decisions which lead to determine what possible areas of knowledge would be of importance to be analyzed, and the diverse methods and instruments that supported the understanding of the phenomena observed in the areas to be further discussed. In this vein, as a group, we decided to select articles that discuss the Ethics of Care Theory as a paradigm for nursing education. The reasons of our choice were, first due to a general knowledge about Ethics of Care Theory and its relationship with education; and second, the field of nursing provided a neutral arena for our discussions. None of us is related to nursing or any health-related educational

Over the past couple of decades, a sudden change has started to take over the way business is done. The time when no rules applied, and anyone could do what they pleased at the cost of others or the environment is rapidly ending. Instead, companies today have become aware that it is essential for them to employ ethics and morality in their actions, if not they will be heavily scrutinized and rejected by the public. This way of thinking also applies to the pharmaceutical industry, which over the past century has been rapidly expanding. Do to the fact that this industry can determine the health and lives of millions of people, it is imperative that this industry follow an ethical and moral path.

The Oxford Dictionary defines caring as the work or practice of looking after, as well as, displaying kindness and concern for those who are unable to care for themselves, especially on account of age or illness. Meanwhile, Avant and Walker (2011) terms caring as an interpersonal process which requires an emotional commitment coupled with willingness to fulfill combined responsibilities and to be trustworthy enough to act on behalf of a person. In essence, it helps in developing great interpersonal relationship between the nurses and the patients in the healthcare centers in a systematic scientific manner.

Ethic of justice is defined as “fairness and equality, verifiable and reliable decision-making based on universal rules and principles, autonomy, objectivity and impartibly, positivistic rationally.” Ethic of care is defined as care, involvement, empathy and maintaining harmonious relations, holistic, contextual and need-centered nature, extended communicative rationality.” The ethic of justice is described as fairness and equality, rational decision-making according to the universal rules and principles, and autonomous, fair and unbiased decision-making. In the other hand, the ethic of care is described as caring, involving and the maintaining of harmonious relationships from a need-centered, holistic and contextual point of view. The ethic of justice is treating everyone equally regardless of the situation, however, the ethic of care is generally treating an individual based on the situation; decision will be made on based on the motivations and need of an individual. Botes implies that using only one of these perspective of decision making can result to remain some of the ethical dilemmas unresolved. Botes’s suggestion for professor is to balance between the justice perspective with the care perspective when making ethical decisions, with the result that the solution would lie within the combination of both the ethics of justice and ethics of

As humans, we naturally want to care for and be taken care of. According to (McEwen & Wills) concepts are terms that refer to phenomena that occur in nature or in thought. Caring is a concept that everyone can relate to and wants. The term “caring” can be used in relation to nurses, patients, and healthcare facilities.

Introduction: Introduces the theory, purpose of the paper, and provides rationale for selecting the theory.

The ethics of care may be a normative moral theory: a theory concerning what makes actions virtuously right or wrong. It's one amongst a cluster of normative moral theories that were developed by feminists within the half of the 20th century. Whereas consequentialist and deontological moral theories emphasize universal standards and non-partisanship, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response. Ethics of care contrasts with additional well-known moral views, like consequentialist theories and deontological theories. This kind of outlook is what feminist critics decision a justice view of morality. A morality is a care that rests on the understanding of relationships as a response to a different in their terms.

Ethics is the moral principles that governs a person’s or group’s behavior. Care is the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something. In Peter Allmark research he wrote about, “Can there be an ethics of care?”

Care ethic believers preach that having emotions helps you to think and feel for others. The goal in emotions is to “focus on the wants and needs of the one being cared for.” They believe through this they can relate to others in their needs. An example that the article gives is the mother-child relationship. If a child wants something to eat, the mother of that child knows best what the child needs. This is due to the “caring motherly nature that mothers have.” Also, caring helps to “motivate us to tend to those, even if we are exhausted, and angry.” The difference between care ethics and utilitarianism is that utilitarian’s do not believe that emotions are helping them to choose right or wrong in any situation. They believe that through calculations, they can