ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the values served by a commitment to research on, and treatment of, catastrophic diseases. This exploration does not intend to turn the process into a mathematical one which grinds out choices based on a finely calculated resolution of value conflicts. The chapter discusses the goals and values that are served by a committed effort to investigate and treat these diseases, so that decisionmakers can be more sensitive to the values which affect the decisions they make and which are served or neglected by those decisions. The treatment and investigation of catastrophic diseases can serve these values by returning the individual to health and hence to a position where he can function as a full human being with control over his own life. The treatment of catastrophic diseases is expensive, and the danger is thus great that, once such an intervention promises more than "research" benefits, it will be available primarily or exclusively to persons of substantial means.
