Unethical Experimentation On the Mentally Ill/Disabled - Research Paper Example

Unethical Experimentation on the Mentally Ill/Disabled Physicians are often confronted with a dilemma with regard topatient-subject scenarios. As physicians, their sole purpose is to care for, reduce the suffering, and heal the pain of their patients, while, as researchers, their sole purpose is advancing knowledge, which is primarily for the benefit of both science and future patients. These two purposes regularly conflict as an individual physician-investigator is faced with a patient-subject scenario. This dilemma is relatively new to medicine as, prior to the Second World War; medicine only served the therapeutic needs of individual patients. For the last fifty years, medical research has risen exponentially to unprecedented magnitudes. Currently, medical practice entails both therapeutic aspects, as well as research, despite the fact that the particular medical intervention may not necessarily serve the individual therapeutic needs of patients. However, with the advancement in experimentation practices, a number of unethical practices have emerged. This includes among others the unethical experimentation on disabled persons or the mentally ill. This paper will examine the unethical experimentation on disabled persons or the mentally ill, describing both psychological and physical experiments. The medical practitioners’ oath, otherwise referred to as the Hippocratic Oath, requires that the medical practitioner follows regulations and systems that are beneficial to the patients, while at the same time abstaining from mischievous and injurious practices. According to Goliszek (p. 14), the prospect of saving lives through experimentation has been plagued by the breaches of human rights and dignity. He laments that behind the dazzling guarantee of life-enhancing technologies is the innate cost of researchers’ efforts to develop the technologies. Knowledge has come at a huge price, especially detrimental to the weak and disadvantaged in the society. People such as disable persons or ones with mental illnesses have been subjected to extremely adverse conditions with the purpose of helping researchers arrive at technologies that do not necessarily benefit the disabled and mentally ill (Fulford and Howse, p. 85). The ethical thresholds that control the use of human beings in experimentation are breached on a regular basis as they have been contravened, redefined and contravened again. The limits of use of human beings for experimentation require redefinition because researchers nowadays use technologies that are more refined and additionally secretive. While, in previous times, experimentation on human beings was conducted on assumptions of racial superiority, today, this experimentation is based on an entirely new rubric, that is, experimentation on mentally ill persons or those with physical disabilities. The assumption behind any unethical experimentation is that the test subjects are subhuman, thus, all medical guidelines on just experimentation need not be met. However, it is often easy to admonish the physicians who conduct these experiments on human beings, but other culprits involved in this vice are governments and other organizations that, whether explicitly or implicitly, support human experimentation, and especially those done on mentally ill persons or the disabled in society. By sponsoring experimentation on the aforementioned group, governments and organizations do, in fact, put a measure on the human worth of the disabled and mentally ill. Goliszek (p. 54) asserts that experimentation on the human body is meant to rest on a quantification that weighs up suffering against gain by comparing the good of the population with the rights of all persons. In addition, experimentation on human beings should use an equation to measure the unknown consequences of the experiment with that of potential rewards of a scientific nature that will help either the subject or later patients. Currently, nearly half of the American population is on one or more prescription drug, and almost 20% of school children use mind-altering amphetamines and antidepressants. This mass medication of the US population is in every sense of the way a grand medical experiment. Able-minded people are able to decide for themselves which drug to take and when. However, mentally ill persons and persons with other forms of physical disabilities are not privy to this right. There have been instances where even the government doctors have initiated unethical experiments on mentally ill and disabled persons. Mentally ill patients have been given hepatitis and chronically ill people have been injected with cancer cells. Ethical Experimentation For a medical experiment to be considered as genuine and ethical, the FDA and Federal Health Department requires that a number of conditions are met. Firstly, experimentation requires the informed consent of both the patient and his/her family; this is a non-negotiable requirement that is sometimes breached by medical researchers. Informed consent essentially means that patients and their families should be furnished with adequate information concerning the experiment, either drug based experimentation or a medical procedure. This information must include the benefits of the experiment for the patient and future patients, and the effects of the experimental drug or procedure (Goliszek, p. 99). Here, the physician-researcher is required to give a vivid description of all the effects of the experiment, detailing both the positive and negative effects. Furthermore, the researcher should offer a description of all the side effects of using the drug in question, providing information such as whether or not the drug or procedure can result in another disease or ailment. In addition, ethical experimentation requires that the medical practitioner abides by the rules set under the Health Department. This includes guidance on the prescription of drugs, conduction of procedures, and the administration of therapies. For example, it would be highly unethical if a researcher uses a higher dosage on a disabled or mentally ill person, even if consent has been provided by the patient’s family. Ethical experimentation on a human being also entails the assertion and sustenance of the person’s human rights like one’s right and privilege to say no to being treated through the experimental program. For instance, if all the thresholds for conducting ethical, human experiments are met with regard to mentally ill or disabled persons, it would be unethical to continue administering the experimental drug or procedure if the patient explicitly asserts his/her desire to abandon the experiment (Goliszek, p. 48). However, the rights and privileges of mentally ill and disabled patients cannot be realized fully unless a number of underlying problems within the experiment consent process are defined and countered. Self-determination by research subjects is sometimes clouded by the confusion between therapy and research, the notion of medical professionalism, and the ambiguity surrounding the tasks of medicine and research. Therapy is a key constituent of treatment modules in disabled and mentally ill persons as it allows for the realignment of the patient’s bodily functions with the desired output. Physician-researchers maintain that clinical research and therapy are quite distinct and that the drugs and therapies administered in the course of treatment can be proffered to patients in therapeutic situations. Katz (p. 75) asserts that the only difference between the scientific endeavors of physician-researchers and their clinical practice is found in the critical evaluation of treatment efficacy and measurement of the risk-benefits of interventions. It is, therefore, pertinent that a clear distinction is made between therapy and experimentation because some physician-researchers are ignorant about the difference between therapy and research. In the case of disabled persons, it is not unheard of for physician-researchers to incorporate new physical therapy plans without receiving prior consent from the patient (Fulford and Howse, p. 87). The patient may be oblivious to the introduction of a new practice as he/she is focused on achieving control of his/her limbs. In addition, the ideology of medical professionalism may cloud the distinction between presumptions of the physician’s authority with regard to patients’ medical needs (Katz, Capron and Glass, p. 83). Here, patients and physicians are often of the opinion that patients’ needs can only be served by abiding by doctors’ orders. This influence often clouds the prospect of informed consent, thereby making the resultant experiment unethical. Basing experiment decisions on the judgment and competence of a physician-researcher is unethical because it gives the medical practitioner unwarranted authority over the patients’ needs and overall wellbeing. This problem is compounded by the development of doctor-patient relationships where doctors are perceived or perceive themselves with an element of authority over the patients. In mentally ill and disabled patients, doctors may have a perceived sense of authority over their patients if they consider their patients as having a lower sense of authority over their bodies because of their disabilities. The tasks of medical practice and research are quite distinct. However, patients often consent to participate in experiments despite their being informed on the risks and alternatives. However, most patients do not take time to conduct their own individual research into the proposals given by physician-researchers (Katz, Capron and Glass, p. 104). This points to a disparity between medical practice and research as not all physicians will forego the prospect of conducting the research successfully by explaining potential alternatives to the patients. Unethical experimentation of human beings, both able bodied or otherwise, therefore, entails physician-researchers leaving out the aspect of alternatives when explaining the intricacies of an experiment to patients and their families. Examples of Unethical Experimentation on Mentally ill/disabled persons Experimentation on the bodies of disabled and mentally ill person is both unethical and immoral. There have been many incidences where mentally ill and disabled people were subjected to experimentation that contravened their human rights. For instance, in the early 1940s, when the safety of fluorides had not yet been fully established, public health officials in Massachusetts gave the not-approved fluorides to children with mental disabilities. The health officials requested the State of Massachusetts to establish regulations that would allow fluoridation to be examined in institutions such as schools for the mentally ill. This experiment was conducted to determine the impacts that using fluoride had on the human body. The researchers used fluoride in the schools’ water supply. This experiment was conducted without consent from the children’s parents. This is a clear contravention of the medical practice. In addition, in the 1950s, children in feebleminded schools were subjected to radioactive material as their food supplies were laced with radioactive isotope. This was done to study the digestive system and assert its tenacity. There have also been other reported cases where experiments are conducted in madhouses. For instance, dental experiments were conducted on mentally ill persons in a Massachusetts madhouse where patients were given capsules made from bone flour, which was rich in fluorine, calcium and phosphorous. This experiment was done on nine mentally ill women whose teeth were in the process of decaying. Furthermore, a mentally ill patient who had a labial cavity in her teeth was wrongfully assured that a filling had been done on the cavity while, in fact, no filling was done. The experiment aimed at testing the occurrence of dental caries in teeth cavity when filling is not done. However, while most of the experimentation done has been of an unethical nature, there have been other instances where the experiments elicited positive results. For instance, there have been cases where hospitals use excessive heat to cook soup-bones such that the bones become exceedingly soft to a degree that they can be pounded using a spoon. The combination of the mashed bones with soup brings about rapid patient recoveries. This is often done with run-down patients and especially those that are unable to eat solid foods. These experiments are nonetheless unethical because the patients do not give their consent to such treatment modules. The US has also been marred with other types of unethical experimentation on disabled persons. For examples, a psychiatrist invented fictitious behaviors in children patients in order to gain the approval of the FDA to mass-market drugs, which had previously undergone a legitimate course of clinical trials. While these drugs were approved, the psychiatrist used improper and unethical methods to conduct experiments on the perceived mentally ill children. Furthermore, the mere fact that the FDA was willing to approve the mass-marketing of the drug on the basis that it was tested in mentally ill patients is evidence of a deep-rooted vice; the unethical experimentation of the physically and mentally ill persons in society (Fulford and Howse, p. 90). Conclusion It is evident that human experimentation is required in order to perfect drugs and other medical procedures. However, this experimentation becomes unethical if it is conducted either to the detriment of the patient or in contravention of the patients’ rights to informed consent and access to sufficient information of prospective alternatives. In addition, unethical experimentation constitutes the manipulation of patients by physicians using their medical professionalism to exert authority over patients’ needs and desires. One of the groups of persons that suffer most from unethical experimentation is people with disabilities, either physical or mental. Since the past, persons with mental and physical disabilities have been subjected to medical experiments that are biased against their disabilities. This is because such persons are sometimes perceived as lesser beings whose rights can be contravened to achieve the greater good of able-bodied persons. Subjecting mentally ill and disabled persons to un-consented experimentation was popular in the past, but nowadays, following the assertion of disabled persons’ rights by governments and other institutions, experimentation on disabled persons has become concealed and unclear to the naked eye (Goliszek, p. 112). It takes additional attention to realize that disabled persons are subjected to experiments that are affixed to their therapies. This is sometimes done through the incorporation of new technologies in the disabled persons’ therapeutic treatment modules, as well as their physical therapies, which are paramount in disabled patients and those who have mental illnesses. Government institutions and other health stakeholders need to distinguish between the aspects of treatment and experimentation to deter physician-researchers using the guise of treatment from conducting unethical experiments, especially on persons with mental illness and disabilities. Works Cited Fulford, K. W. and Howse, K. “Ethics of research with psychiatric patients: principles, problems and the primary responsibilities of researchers”. Journal of Medical Ethics 19 (1993): 85-91. Print. Goliszek, A. In the Name of Science: A History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2003. Print. Katz, J., Capron, A. M. and Glass, E.S. Experimentation with human beings: the authority of the Investigator, subject, professions, and state in the human experimentation process. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1972. Print. Read More