Human Behavior
Core 150
I feel there is a definite need for knowledge
in todays society, but
there is also a definite point when it has
gone too far. It has gone too far
by conducting
experiments on people without letting them know the
consequences and
side effects that will place upon them.
It has also
reached an
extreme when the person becomes physically or mentally
impaired after
the experiments . I see this treatment
as both immoral
and unethical;
there is no reason to harm a normally healthy person for some
advancement in
scientific knowledge .
In doing research for this paper I have found
many examples where
humans were used
as "guinea pigs" or killed.
One example of this
misconduct was in
1959 it was a common practice for drug companies to
provide samples
of experimental drugs, to physicians, who were then paid to
gather data on
their patients taking the drugs.
Physicians throughout the
country prescribed
there drugs to patients without their knowledge or consent
as part of this loosely controlled
research. Example of this was the drug
sedative
thalidomide was given to vast number of pregant women and caused
thousands of
birth defects in newborn infants.
Because of this event, the
Kefauver - Harris
amendmants to food, drug and cosmetic act were passed
requiring
informal consent be obtained in the testing of these drugs.
Another
rascality research project was doctors
injected live cancer
cells into
underprivileged elderly patients without their permission. The
research went
forward without review by the hospital's research committee
and over the
objections of three physicians consulted, who argued that the
proposed subjects
were unfit of giving ample consent to participate. The
revealing of the
experiment served to make both officials and the Board of
Regents of the
University of the State of New York, aware of the
shortcomings of
procedures in place to protect human subjects. They were
further concerned
over the public's reaction to revealing of the research and
the impact it
would have on research generally and the institutions in
particular. After
a review the Board of Regents disapproved the researchers.
They suspended
the licenses of Dr.'s Mandel and Southam, but since delayed
the suspension
and placed the physicians on probation for one year.
Another example took place during World War II. The new field of
radiation science
was at the center of one of the most ambitious and
concealed
research efforts the world has known Human radiation
experiments. They
were undertaken in secret to help understand radiation
risks to workers
engaged in the development of the atomic bomb.
Following
the war, the new Atomic Energy Commission used
facilities to make the
atomic bomb to
produce radioisotopes for medical research and other
peacetime uses.
This highly publicized program provided the radioisotopes
that were used in
thousands of human experiments conducted in research
plants throughout
the country. The Government didn't really know if anything
happened to the
patients until the Advisory Committee did
studies involving
children that had
exposures to radioisotope that were associated with
increases in the
possible lifetime risk for developing thyroid cancer that
would be
considered unacceptable today. The Advisory Committee also
identified
several studies in which patients died soon after receiving external
radiation or
radioisotope portions in the healing range that were associated
with radiation effects.
In these cases which I have researched, many committees have
implemented to
set a standard set of rules and requirements to keep human
experimentation
under control. This process is something
I agree with and I
would have liked
to see developed some time ago. Having
looked over the
examples above I
can not get over what the government and
researchers did
to these innocent
people in the past. I think the
government and the
researchers
should compensate the population that was tested in some form,
be it money,
apologies, etc..
No comments:
Post a Comment