Too much medical technology can hurt patients, says Vatican official

Published: 2007-10-01

ROME (CNS) -- While progress in medicine and technology holds great promise for humanity, relying too heavily on biomedical technology runs the risk of hurting the very people meant to be helped, said a Vatican official. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, said state-of-the-art equipment, medical procedures and medicines "are only part of the health care system, and undue insistence on their capabilities" may place more emphasis on meeting the demands of health care providers than on the needs of the patients. The cardinal made his comments during a Sept. 28 conference on "Health, Technology and the Common Good." The conference, which drew scholars and experts from the field of health care, genetics and pharmaceutical industries, was sponsored by the conservative U.S. think tank the Acton Institute and had the support of the Vatican health care council. Cardinal Lozano said the ultimate goal of all technology must be that it is used for the good of all people, and he warned that "everything technologically possible need not be ethically permissible."

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