Pros And Cons: The Ethicality Of Medical Experimentation

When one researches about the medical ethics in human experimentation, it is difficult to disregard the harsh realities of it. As Leonard Nimoy stated in his role as Spock in the movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. This is the cruel truth that be seen everywhere, but many people tend to ignore it since it is such a dreary thought. Many people, especially those in third world countries, are exploited every day. Large corporate companies come to typically poorer foreign nations, where there is a large gap between the rich and poor, to find cheaper workers. Many people in these foreigners tend to be desperate for money and immediately sign up for these jobs. Typical corporations would hire these people and make them work in inhumane working conditions such as long hours, less pay, and give no sanitation facilities. Although this happens on an everyday basis, there are very few people out there who challenge the large corporations. This example can also apply to medical ethics, sometimes a small amount of people have to suffer through experiments to help the general public. Although this is a morbid thought, it has been used in the past. During the mid-twentieth century, many American scientist believe that experimenting on a few people and making them suffer would create results that would be very beneficial to the general public. Today, most modern developed countries don’t believe in this ideology, but there are

The author believes that biomedical research is the way of better understanding medicine and without randomized clinical trials the field of medicine will have insufficient information. He argues that randomized clinical trials are the most scientifically sound and ethically correct means of evaluating new therapies. The belief of a physician being unethical when running randomized clinical trials is rejected by this article because previous trials on patients can have a better outcome on future patients. This article stresses that randomized clinical trials must be carefully designed that has an intended purpose of gathering data to improve the wellbeing of patients. If the patient is to endure a clinical trial he/she must be properly informed of the risks of the trial and the health of the patient should be high priority. Overall this article explains the importance of randomized clinical trials and debunks the idea of randomized clinical trials as being unethical. This article uses a utilitarian point of view and gives reasons why these trials can be in the best interests for both the patient and society.

When does it become inappropriate for doctors to experiment with people’s brains? The story Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keys is about a man named Charlie, who was born with a cognitive disability. He has many obstacles to overcome. He has a cognitive disorder causing him to not understand/learn the same way as others. Therefore, scientists want to intervene and perform operation to make him smarter. Scientists should not experiment on those who do not have a mental capacity to have a say in their own decision.

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.

A 35-year-old man named Paul, who has a supportive wife and two adventurous kids, has been diagnosed with a very severe case of bone cancer for 1 year now. Since this type of cancer is so severe, chemotherapy is starting to not work as well. Paul’s oncologist unfortunately had to suggest a final option for Paul to try which was a clinical research trial. Clinical research trials are experimental studies that deem whether or not a medical drug, treatment, surgery, or device is safe and beneficial for humans to use ("National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute"). As explained in Marcia Angell’s Article, “The Ethics of Clinical Research in the Third World”, the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Health Organization (WHO) provides a guideline

To start out, it is important to differentiate between practice and research, especially in this discussion of therapeutic research trials. Practice is meant to treat an individual in order to improve upon their quality of life. The practice of medicine generally yields good outcomes and is not inherently risky, with some exceptions. However, research on the other hand includes subjects or participants to learn something about people or a topic as a whole. While it seems that the differences are clear, there are many times when the lines between the two may blur. One of the ways that the differences are more ambiguous is in the case of

Medical experiments on human subjects carry a great deal of ethical dilemma. In the United States, there have been various experiments made on human subjects that raised the ire of many people in the society. Many of the subjects were subject to drug experimentation, risky operations and being infected with diseases just to know how the disease affects the body. One of these experiments is the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment conducted to unknowing subjects for 40 years.

In response to this, it is clear the patients should have consent by having a say whether to agree with the terms of the experiment. Researchers should understand the consequences of the experiment and can judge whether the consequences are appropriate. As for the Guatemalan case, to test whether penicillin is a successful treatment for the syphilis disease, the patients should at least have the right to consent. If the patient is clearly ill with inevitable death and has agreed that he wants to die to delay the suffering, that would be a more appropriate time to inject the patients with diseases and treat them, knowing they have consent and want to die. Therefore, being more particular of the patients is another thing added to the regulations enforced for conducting experiments for the review boards. To summarize, to conduct research by experimentation, the regulations that should be enforced are to have the patient’s consent and agreement to have the experiment conducted on them. Lastly, the consequences of the experiment and consideration whether the patients are applicable to be tested on should be decided based on whether the patient is about to die and the testing would only in

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

There have been many experiments in the past that have acquired useful research furthering the advancement of society all over the world that allow humans to understand more about what was previously unknown. However, there have been many tests done in unethical ways that are conducted with sinister tests that view the lives operated on as just data in an experiment. Examples of this are; the Tuskegee untreated syphilis experiment where the US government infected African Americans with syphilis and did not treat them with medicines to see if that would be a better resolve, the irradiation of African American cancer patients during the Cold War conducted by the pentagon to see effects of radiation on humans without their consent which led to multiple deaths from radiation poisoning, and the “doctor’s Trial” which was occurring in Nuremberg, during the same time as the Guatemala syphilis experiment, where 23 German physicians participated in Nazi programs to euthanize and/or medically experiment on concentration camp

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

Historically, in medical research, researchers have taken patients cells or organs and used them for research without their consent. Occasionally there are connections with a lack of consent and the economic, social and educational ranking of the patient being used for medical research. There have been trends that show the medical community has taken advantage of the less educated, they may not understand what is happening and/or all the risks involved. Consent should be required at the same level for all patients regardless of their status in society or level of education.

“2295 Research or experimentation on the human being cannot legitimate acts that are in themselves contrary to the dignity of persons and to the moral law. The subject’s potential consent does not justify such acts. Experimentation on human beings is not morally legitimate if it exposes the subject’s life or physical and psychological integrity of disproportionate or avoidable risks. Experimentation on human beings does not conform to the dignity of the person of it takes place without the informed consent of the subject or those legitimately speak for him.” (CCC; 29/05/14)

In todays society, the common consensus about human experimentation is that it is unethical, however, people in the past believed it was necessary to advance scientific discoveries. The Tuskegee syphilis study is a prime example of how scientists in the past disregarded the ethics of human experimentation to enhance scientific research. The study was an experiment where four- hundred to six-hundred uneducated African American men were tricked into being tested. Most of the patients were injected with the disease and left without treatment to discover its effects, while the others were safe being used as controls. This experiment lasted for Forty years and was probably the biggest example of unethical human experimentation in America. Fortunatley, the contrivertial actions taken in the experiment lead future generations to create the law of informed consent where the patient understands what will happen during their treatment. The inspiration for researching this topic was how in “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, by Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta was used for a scientific study without her consent. In relation to Henrietta, the men in the syphilis study were not aware of what was happening to them and were experimented on without their consent. Overall, the human experimentation in the Tuskegee syphilis study was unethical in many ways.

In the famous Belmont Report, several guidelines regarding informed consent, assessment of risk and benefits, and selection of subjects in addition to ethical practice and procedure in the area of human research are outlined. The Belmont Report attempts to summarize the basic ethical principles identified by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (Belmont Report, 1979). In particular I would like to discuss the standards for informed consent, assessment of risk and benefits, and selection of test subjects drawn out by the Belmont Report. These three areas of interest are said to be the applications of the general