A lecture to consider some important ethical issues, past and present.
Congenital disease is rare, and the cause of a tiny fraction of overall childhood mortality. Poverty, malnutrition, inadequate water supply and infectious diseases are all more important causes of death. So why do we invest so heavily in the treatment of these rare disorders and are we right to do so, especially in developing countries?
Advances were often made in the past by brave attempts at treatments based on light evident but strong belief. Would these have been 'allowed' today?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-ethical-challenges-of-new-treatments-in-children-could-we-do-now-what-we-did

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,700 lectures free to access or download from the website.
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