Medical Research and Dependent People Essay

The art of medicine and curing diseases was not always approached in a scientific way. In fact, many advances occurred between 1919 to 1939, after technological advances allowed scientists to apply the scientific method to medical research. At this time, the ethics of using patients as test subjects either for new medicines or as samples for further testing were not considered. An extreme example of this was the Nazi’s using concentration camp inmates – including children – to run painful and invasive experiments. More modern examples are not so easy to identify as unethical, however. While amputating a leg to develop methods to deal with fractures and war wounds is obviously unethical, harvesting cells to develop a vaccine is not so clear cut, as the disadvantage to the patient is hard to identify. Coming from the various Nazi testing and especially the Nuremberg testing and trials, another code of ethics was developed, called the Nuremberg Code.

The central ethical conflicts of the Clara’s case are several infringements committed regarding human rights in human experimentation. According to the American Psychological Association Code of Ethics [APA] (2010) experiments such as Clara would have violated several sections from standard 8: 8.01 (obtaining institutional approval), 8.02 (participants’ informed consent), 8.04 (client/patient, student, and subordinate respect to continue in research), 8.07 (deception in research), and 8.09 (humane care). Section 8.01 indicates that researchers must obtain approval prior

De Bord, J. (2014). ETHICS IN MEDICINE University of Washington School of Medicine. Retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/consent.html

Additionally human medical research studies often targeted those who came to public teaching institutions desperately seeking free medical treatment and who generally looked up to doctors and experimenters as experts in the field who were there to help them. While this motivation may seem logical, it is often faulty as many human medical research studies throughout history demonstrate that the motivation of medical researches is often not the care of those currently suffering from a particular condition but the future returns on the cures or medical treatments that may be discovered during the study (McKie). As with many such unethical studies, the participants often do not give consent and are not informed of known dangers to the procedure, medications or lack of treatment. The use of individuals who are poor, uneducated, and lack medical insurance in combination with prestigious university research institutions and the white coated, well-educated researchers motivated by discoveries of cures on the scientific frontier results in abuses of individuals.

World governments have frequently relied on unknowing participants and or prisoners of war for experimentation. While these experiments range vastly concerning procedures, outcomes, and justification, they all existed to outsmart international enemies efficiently. The government bioethics conspiracy I researched is Project MKUltra. This was a secretive CIA program that experimented with mind control, hallucinogenic drugs, and the behavioral engineering of humans from 1953 to 1973. Because the program existed for a couple decades, it encompassed a wide-range of experiments, types of patients, and immense secrecy. More often than not, test subjects were not aware of tests to be conducted and thought they were participating in standard medical tests at first. Despite the program coming to a halt, many believe human experimentation is still ongoing and don’t see a future without secret government research.

The foundation of modern day informed consent is based on his statement “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what should be done with his (or her) own body.”(3) There were many historical events that lead to present day consent acts. Some of them were as follows (ref #3)

In 1991, The United States established a policy to protect human beings from unfair, and unwanted subjects in experiments. This process was done by establishing an Informed Consent which is a legal document. Informed consent which is a legal document that is compose and overseen by the United States judicial system. This law was a necessity due, to the way humans were being tested on in the late 20’s. Unfortunately, in the past the United States took part in a lot of experiments on human beings as test subjects. Furthermore, the overall attributes of studies conducted during the 1920’s thru the 1950’s were considered unethical acts against human beings. Furthermore, the people that were involved had no knowledge that they were subjects in a life-threatening experiment. This type of treatment towards any human being is unethical medical practices. Experimenting on anyone without his or her knowledge is now considered unconstitutional in the United States of American. Anyone can volunteer however, there are guidelines which the volunteer may be either accepted or rejected for Clinal Trails

The subject of consent requires the understanding of some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding the subject-

Potential grave consequences that can result from irresponsible, or criminal, medical experiments. While we must be vigilant to protect innocent victims from such experimentation we cannot let that stifle our duty to continue making advances in healthcare and improving the lives of patients.

Historically speaking, the treatment of humans and animals has been poor in the name of research. Instances such as those occurring in Nuremburg and Tuskegee set forth a foundation for governance in research of human subjects. Respect of the individual’s autonomy and the beneficence must be demonstrated in the study.

The first ethical principle stated by the Belmont Report is respect for persons. “Respect for persons incorporates at least two ethical convictions: first, that individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and second, that persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection” (The Belmont Report). The researcher must respect the subjects decisions and be obliged to allow them to take part of the experiment voluntarily. The second

"Nazi Medical Experimentation." The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.

Over the years human experiments has developed the knowledge of human physiology and psychology. However, the use of human’s subject in research have to become a controversial issue in our society. It has become a debatable questions whether it’s ethical or not. There has to be a limit to where certain experiments can be implemented on humans such as trials for drugs and social experiments. There are moral principles that guides our research into deciding what is “right or wrong”. This principles is governed by two philosophical theory which is deontology and utilitarianism. However, they need to balance the risk and benefit for the participant associated with the research.

The elements of consent required in the Nuremberg Code are the ability to choose freely, have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the design of the experiment. Required in all circumstances, whether one is seeking consent from the subject or through a legal proxy and were horribly ignored in the Willowbrook hepatitis studies. The first attack against true consent is the coercion of parents looking for an appropriate institution to send their disabled child they themselves are not able to take care of anymore. At one time the Willowbrook State School discontinued their enrollment into the general program because of overcrowding but allowed the hepatitis study wards to remain open to new members as a research necessity. This forced parents to either go to another institution often farther away from home or to volunteer their child for the study not because they wanted to but because that was the only way their child would receive admission into Willowbrook State school. This coercion and abuse of the parent’s duress prevented them from making the right decision for their child. The second ethical attack on true consent is the lack of information provided to the parents. If one reads the cover letter to the paperwork authorizing children to this experiment, it makes no mention of intentionally

The Nuremberg Doctors Trial of 1946 is the preeminent case recognizing the importance of medical ethics and human rights specifically about human research subjects. The defendants in the trials include Nazi leadership, physicians, and investigators prosecuted for conducting unethical and inhumane medical experiments on civilians and prisoners of war resulting in extreme pain, suffering, permanent injury and often death. The Nuremberg Code, borne of these trials, establishes ethical guidelines for human experimentation to ensure the rights of subjects in medical research. Herein, this writer will first identify and discuss ethical dilemmas presented in the Nuremberg case followed by three