Disease in Breaking Bad

Description:    For my artifact, I chose a famous scene from the television drama Breaking Bad.  The premise of the show is about a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and resorts to cooking and selling methamphetamines to financially support his family beyond his passing.  The two clips that I will show the class highlight and discuss a scene in which Walt has informed his family of his cancer and refuses to seek medical treatment for it.  At the time in the series, it is believed that Chemo therapy is the only option and will only prolong and ease Walt’s death.  In response to his refusal of treatment, Walt’s family hosts an intervention for his perceived poor judgment.  During the intervention, the family discusses financial limitations, familial obligations, and right to personal choice.

Analysis:         I chose this as my artifact because the premise of the show reveals the moral issue of committing a crime for a moral good (ie. Walt produces and disturbs illegal drugs [immoral] for a morally satisfying purpose [providing for his family.])  This was essentially the basic justification for the conduction of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.  Although it was immoral to oppress the African American race to a medical case study, the published intentions of it were to attain more accurate medical knowledge and awareness of an outstanding disease.  I’m aware that the results the study was searching for may have indeed validated a form of scientific racism, but to me, the instance of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study poses the overall issue of moral injustice for the purpose of a conceived “greater good.”

            The scene from the episode exposes the authority imposed on Walt by his situation.  His wife makes note that their access to treatment is limited by their financial situation, much like African Americans during the time of the Tuskegee Study.  She also argues that Walt’s necessity to provide for and be loved by the family obligate him to seek treatment.  In all, the authority imposed on Walt in reinforced by the notion that he does not have any other option but to seek treatment to due to his restrictions.  The limited options that Walt has due to his circumstances are similar to African Americans in the study and the main reason why the pool of participants built up.

            An opponent to Walt’s subjugation to this authority is his sister-in-law Marie.  During the scene, she professes her support for Walt’s decision to refuse medical treatment, which propagates the same feeling among other family members.

            At the end of the scene, Walt basically states that he is refusing treatment because he wishes to not be subjugated by the authority that his circumstances bring.  He does not want to prolong an inevitable death for numbing purposes and would rather live out the remainder of his life in a manner which he prefers than to seek intervention and feel oppressed.

            I chose Walt’s story because it reflects shades of the stories of the Tuskegee Study participants.  Walt’s family initially feels that their financial situation gives them limited options.  He had been diagnosed with what was perceived as a serious threat, much like syphilis during the early twentieth century.  His resistance to health measures projects him as degenerate to his family.  It also adds to the idea of remaining untreated to a fatal disease when therapy is available, as Dr. Irwin Schatz points out.

Questions:

1. The concept of moral injustice for a greater benefit is used to legitimize the Tuskegee Study.  It is also a recurring idea in Breaking Bad.  Aside from the racial aspect, is it excusable to commit an injustice, such as the oppression of African Americans as an experimental subject in this instance, for the purpose of the acquisition of greater medical understanding and comprehension for the future?

2. Washington proposes an interesting hypothetical situation: “Imagine the global jubilation that would greet the announcement of a simple injection to sure AIDS.”  The emergence of penicillin was viewed in a similar way among syphilitics.  With that, is it immoral to deny someone access to a cure for a fatal disease if their financial situation will not allow them?  The idea of universal healthcare is debated often in this country and this situation falls right into that argument.

3. The committee that ended the study reported that the participants of it submitted voluntarily but were not fully informed of its dangers.  Washington argues that the committee addressed the wrong ethical issue and that never informing the participants that they were in an experiment to begin with was more immoral.  Which do you think is more immoral, the wrongful informing of the study’s dangers or existence to the participants?  Do you think even if they had know that they were part of a study that they would have refused to participate despite the chance that they could possibly still receive treatment to their disease?

4. Sharma argues that the Tuskegee Study lasted because it presented African Americans as a diseased race and that the Negro Project failed because it instead racialized syphilis due to the socioeconomic conditions of the time.  Do you think that the Negro Project failed because it revealed what medical scientists knew to be the true cause of syphilis among African Americans while the Tuskegee Study’s intent was to validate a form of scientific racism during a time of heated racial tensions?  Was the study performed to find results which validated scientific racism or was it performed to demonstrate racist conclusions that were already known?

Here are the links to the videos:

http://www.amctv.com/breaking-bad/videos/ep-5-gray-matter-highlight-minisode

http://www.amctv.com/breaking-bad/videos/inside-breaking-bad-the-talking-pillow