The Pros And Cons Of Primaquine

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.

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.

The Tuskegee study is a prime example of why ethical treatment is necessary. This study took place in 1932 and dealt with African Americans who had contracted Syphilis. They were told they would get free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance in exchange for participating in the study. The catch was that the people participating in the study who had syphilis were not treated properly. Even when penicillin became the main treatment for syphilis, the patients were not given it and were not given the option to leave the study when this happened. Ultimately, the study got shut down because it was considered unethical due to the fact that the patients were not given enough information to give real informed consent.

Is human experimentation appropriate? Should people be given the right to informed consent if the research could result in possible harm? Is human experimentation in light of the Tuskegee study justified? These are just some of the questions that arose during the presentation of the film Deadly Deception. This film featured the government sponsored Tuskegee experiment and documents this forty year study of untreated syphilis in the black males of Macon County, Alabama. This review will examine the film Deadly Deception in light of the appropriateness of human experimentation and the right for informed consent as well as the different ethical and moral views that may arise as a response to what occurred.

An ethical concern of dealing with human subjects is an increasingly sensitive topic. Although the sample stolen from Henrietta Lacks’ cervix did contribute to the most important discoveries made in the field of medicine, her rights were heavily violated. At the time, medical researchers were not concerned with rights of research subjects. Examples of this can be seen during the cruel experiments that happened in concentration camps during World War II and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932 until 1972. But because of the experiments and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, ethics of studies were made more of a priority than they were while Henrietta Lacks was alive.

Human experimentation has a history of scandal that often shapes people’s views of the ethics of research. Often the earliest cited case is English physician Edward Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796,where he injected an eight-year-old boy child with pus taken from a cowpox infection and then deliberately exposed her to an infected carrier of smallpox. Although Jenner’s experiment was successful and it confirmed his theory, the method of

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.

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

At extermination camps, the Nazis conducted many medical experiments on the prisoners that resulted in many deaths. Between 1939 and 1945 medical research projects involving cruel and often lethal experimentation on human subjects were performed. These projects were supported, well-known organizations in the Third Reich and were categorized into three fields: research intended at cultivating the endurance and rescue of German troops, testing of medical techniques and medications, and experiments that pursued to approve Nazi cultural belief. More than seven thousand victims of these cruel medical experiments have been acknowledged. Targets of the experiments included Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, and Catholic priests (Medical Experiments ).

At the beginning of the past century, many human subjects in researches were unethical. Even though, researches are inevitable and important to make contributions in the field of research, human subjects should be respected. The two most popular examples of historically harmful research are the Nazi Medical War Crime on unwilling human subject and the Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. This essay will focus on the Tuskegee study.

During Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany there was research being done on people who may not have given consent and their basic rights as humans were being violated. The scientist that had been performing these experiments were tried for “war crimes”(Hyder) after World War II. Although these experiments that happened in Germany at the time did improve knowledge in the medical community the methods it was retrieved are questionable. Hyder is right to conclude that, “no country or medical association had adopted the Nuremberg Code in its entirety” but most look up to the codes, for standards on medical research and experiments. In the Nuremberg Codes it is specifically stated, “the human subject should… have sufficient knowledge and comprehensions of the elements… involved”(Hyder). This means even if a patient has less education than needed to comprehend what is going on then the doctor has the responsibility of informing and explaining to the patient of everything that could happen. The Codes are vague, because they do not explain what “sufficient knowledge” means. This leaves room for the doctors to stretch the consent forms, going back to Henrietta Lacks a doctor could argue that experimenting with immortal cells from her body do fit in her consent form. Her form stated, they could do what “was needed”, and maybe taking a sliver of cancerous cells from her

Throughout history there are many examples of humans conducting experiments on other humans. Over the years human experimentation has greatly advanced the knowledge of human physiology and psychology, leading to better treatments for ailments both physical and mental as well as a better overall understanding of the human constitution. Despite all of the good which human experimentation has done for the human race there have been times when experimenters have taken human experimentation past the bounds of morality. This unethical human experimentation is most often caused when the experimenters are, in some way, able to justify their experiments.

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

Throughout the ages, many experiments have been performed on willing and unwilling participants. Some experiments happened to be non-harming, while others caused much distress, pain, and sometimes death to the subjects. Human experimentation today has greatly transitioned due to past experiences for the better of the participants. Some of the past experiments that brought upon the changes in laws and standards were the Little Albert Experiment, Stanford Prison Experiment, human vivisection, and the Tuskegee Experiments. Safety has become the major concept in the laws for human experimentation due because of many experiments in the fields of medical and psychological studies. With the standards in experimentation

Experimental medicine can drastically change the approach to fatal diseases and increase the quality of life of people presented with these diseases. How is not allowing patients access to experimental medicine, considered inhumane? Experimental medicine consists of drugs and treatments that have not yet been cleared for human consumption, but are still offered in terminally ill patients that have no other option. If patients are given the option of using experimental medicine as a last resort, there is a greater chance they will survive, and will improve medical opportunities. Holding back these medicines from terminally ill patients gives them limited options and therefore is subjecting them to inhumane treatment.