Responsibilities In Business Ethics

A detailed Summary of Responsibilities In Business Ethics

One day a twenty year old man was walking when he all of a sudden drops dead on the spot. The cause of death was later determined as a heart attack which is peculiar for a twenty year old man. Further investigation revealed that the man had a pace maker implanted in him. Even more strange then the circumstance of his death was the fact that six other individuals also died with pacemakers inserted within them. The question now is what led to their unfortunate deaths? Who can be held responsible and accountable for their actions or lack of actions? For this sort of phenomena to occur, there must be something that was left unsaid.

The causal responsibility can be divided among several parties, first being the manufacturer of the pacemaker and the ones who work under them to sell them. After the Heymach v. Cardiac Pacemakers case was decided in 1999, pacemaker companies were forced to modify their products as stated in the ruling. The manufacture of the pacemaker explains how no other product goes through as much testing as pacemakers do and that since the modifications there has been no problems regarding their product. They are even quoted on saying that the incidents were, "unrelated" and "perhaps they were installed inc

Throughout the duration of this case, the over lying factor of all that occurred was simply caused by greed. Money is said to be, "the root of all evils" and in especially holds true in these cases. The negligence of the Ford Motor company to simply install an $11 safety valve in its cars is similar to the negligence of the pacemaker manufacturer by using cheap leads in which some were corroded. Also the negligence of the hospital for installing a pacemaker whom they knew was used without ever examining the condition of it. The total sum paid to the family of this twenty-year old man who died of a heart attack should be in the sum of eight-figures. The manufacturer of the pacemaker is being held accountable for 60% of what had happened. Therefore they are forced to pay the majority of the reward, and should have to recall, and if need be, replace all of their existing pacemakers which had leads from the Hong Kong batch. The hospital is accountable and will have to pay roughly 30% of the reward sum due to their negligence in accepting the pacemaker to be reinstalled into another patient. They simply should have known what they were purchasing, this is an example of buyer beware. Finally, the salesman who purchased the used pacemakers with the intent of selling them back to the hospital for installation, and had modified the product knowing they were going to be used once again thus endangering the lives of patients is found to be 10% reasonable for what had happened and will be forced to pay that 10% of the reward sum.

The third party in which causal responsibility can be divided is the medical school supply office in which the pacemaker was purchased. After the supply office first denied selling the used pacemakers, the coroner of the body later determined that it was with out a doubt used. It was the suppliers' belief that no one would actually use them. He was simply looking to make some extra money on the side while providing students with a pacemaker to use for study purposes.

Despite the fact that the hospital who installed the pacemaker didn't examine the pacemaker before hand, they're truly had no knowledge of its past. They didn't know how the company purchased cheap, corroded leads from Hong Kong to increase their profits. They probably new it was a used device, but probably not how the salesman who they bought it from modified the battery dates after purchasing them from a medical school supply store. Even though should've realized the condition of the pacemaker, the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1696
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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