Human Medical Experimentation as a Form of Torture - Essay Example

? Human Experimentation Human medical experimentation is a form of torture that is not only gruesome and illegal but is a practice that has been kept in the dark for many years. It is a procedure that did not simply violate human rights, but in fact, it defied every sort of right possessed by humans, be it right to live or right of consent before experimentation. The sad part is that it has been adopted by medical practitioners and scientists in a full fervency since a long time. This paper focuses on this most heinous type of torture, with a brief explanation on how it has been practiced since the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century. It includes the historical background, after-effects, and the current status of human medical experimentation. The research entails the pros and cons of this practice along with salient ideas on overcoming or eradicating this kind of torture. Human Medical Experimentation A torturous conduct that thoroughly defied human rights and questioned healthcare norms It is generally stated that human beings of the world have certain rights which cannot be taken away from them, irrespective of situation and circumstances. The nature of these rights may be political or civil liberty; however, the most important right which a human being is entitled to is the right to physical safety and, most significantly, to "life". Human rights basically project the need for human tolerance, acceptance, fairness and mutual respect. The human rights notion exudes morality and justice. Although importance of human rights is emphasized by many organizations and governments around the world, violation of human rights is a common experience around the world. The participation of human beings in medical experimentation is one such subject, which remains controversial due to human rights abuses. Many developed countries of the world, including the United States, claim to be world leaders in medical research. However, the Western medical development has a hidden dark side which is not acknowledged by many. This unlit side points to the fact that in order to develop medicine and achieve scientific progress, horrific medical experiments were conducted on destitute human beings and their children (Moses, 2007). For the most part, these medical experiments were conducted to gain profit by successfully developing drugs for various diseases and, mostly, these experiments were conducted without the knowledge of the people involved in the experimentation. Many believe that despite today’s so called free and civilized societies prevailing in the West, human experimentation has been taken up on a mass level. According to experts, almost half of the population of the United States is using some kind of drug regularly, and about 20% of children are using antidepressants or amphetamines (Moses, 2007). This paper aims to explore the topic of human medical experimentation with a view to illustrate its history, the dark side which it projects, the benefits that it has provided to human society and current status and opinions of various experts on the subject. Various medical fields such as biology, psychology, anthropology and clinical medicine employ human subject for research purposes. Human medical experimentation exposes living human beings to experiments, which are mostly cruel, painful, deadly and risky. Although Western countries are responsible for astounding medical breakthroughs such as the cure for malaria and other deadly diseases, this success, however, is followed by an immense price paid by the participants of the experiments. Some participants are compensated for their losses in physical and mental health, but most participants have not been compensated at all. Many participants have lost their lives during the process of experimentation, and of course, no compensation can bring back the most precious thing lost: their lives. The history of human medical experimentation in U.S. dates back to 1845, when J. Marion Sims, also known as the father of gynecology, experimented on enslaved African women without administrating anesthesia (Dahlin, 2010). These women would mostly die of infection after giving birth to the newborns. He also used shoemaker’s awl in order to practice moving the skull bones of children born to these women (Dahlin, 2010). Similarly, Nazis performed a series of medical experiments on the POWs for the benefit of their soldiers during WWII. In one such experiment, regeneration of bones, nerves and muscles was studied by transferring bones from one person to another, mostly without anesthesia. Likewise, in another experiment, about 1,000 inmates of a concentration camp were infected by mosquitoes and various drugs tested on them to find the cure for malaria (Annas & Edward, 1992). In 1906, Dr. Richard Strong, a Harvard professor, infected captives in the Philippines with the cholera virus in order to study the disease, and as a result of this experiment, 13 prisoners died (Annas & Edward, 1992) The physician compensated the survivors with cigarettes and cigars. Later, after promulgation of the Nuremberg Code, the Nazis doctors who were under trial for human rights abuse during human medical experimentation, quoted this study in order to defend their own human medicinal research. Historical review of "The Associated Press" reports and other newspaper clippings suggests that there were at least 40 similar experiments conducted in the U.S. alone. Many such experiments led to the discovery of life-saving drugs. However, many just satisfied the curiosity of scientists hurting many patients in the process. All these experiments are inevitably compared with the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study, in which U.S. doctors monitored 600 black Americans in Alabama who suffered from syphilis (Kluchin, 2011). Although penicillin was already available at the time of the experiment, these patients were deprived of any such medication. Such studies negated the basic centuries old norm of the medical profession, i.e., do no harm. According to Arthur Caplan, who is the director of Center for Bioethics at University of Pennsylvania, prime ethical norm of the medical profession is twisted when somebody is intentionally infected with disease (Stobbe, 2011). Most of these studies conducted between 1940s and the '60s stayed out of the news and media, and those which were reported promised cures for deadly diseases without highlighting the treatment offered to the participants. In those ties, attitude of the community towards medical research was very different. Scores of people were being killed by infectious diseases, and there was an urgency among health workers across the world to discover and test medicines. During that era, even prominent medical researchers did not think it unethical or illegitimate to experiment on destitute people of society, e.g. poor blacks, mentally handicapped and prisoners. A similar attitude was seen when Nazi doctors experimented on Jews during WWII. Laura Stark, assistant professor of science at Wesleyan University, who is also authoring a book on “past human medical experiments,” described this kind of attitude by stating that at that time, there was a sense of sacrifice for the nation which is non-existent in today’s society (Stobbe, 2011). The Associated Press review of the medical reports and journals depicts a horrific account of human medical experimentations, which were not made public due to unknown reasons. Dr. Jonas Salk, who would later be known as the inventor of the Polio vaccine, conducted a federally financed study in 1942 by injecting a new vaccine for flu in patients at mental institution in Ypsilanti, Michigan (Foxx, 2011a). The patients were exposed to flu a few months later. However, most of the patients were unable to explain their condition, raising many questions about how well they were acquainted with the process. In another similar federally financed experiment conducted in 1940s, Dr. W. Paul Havens Jr. infected patients with hepatitis in a sequence of tests, including a test in which participants were selected from mental asylums in Middletown and Norwich, Connecticut (Foxx, 2011a). However, no media reports are available regarding the experiment on mental patients, which proved to be a futile effort and also turned 80 healthy males seriously ill. (Foxx, 2011a) Another notorious study was conducted in mid-1940s in New York, in which researchers made the participants swallow stool suspension (Gorski, 2011). The idea was to see how well a lethal stomach bug infected the patients through swallowing as compared to breathing. Although researchers concluded that swallowing was a more effective way to spread the disease, no mention was made of how the participants were compensated for this heinous task. Unbelievably, another study in the same decade was conducted at the University of Minnesota where eleven volunteers were subjected to malaria and were made to starve for five days (Gorski, 2011). Some of them were even forced to hard labor, and these participants lost approximately 14 pounds. Surprisingly, no mention of this research can be found in the news archives. In 1950s, Federal health workers infected approximately two dozen prison inmates in Atlanta; they were infected with gonorrhea using different methods (Stobbe, 2011). The bacteria were inserted into the urinary tracks of the inmates through the penis. However, later the health workers realized that it was not comparable to the way people acquired disease, by having sex with an infected person (Stobbe, 2011). This study was not published in any newspaper at that time, either. The belief behind these experiments conducted on POWs and enslaved women was that these human beings were simply considered as living creatures instead of human beings. No consideration of their well-being and benefit was ever deliberated, and in most of these experiments, consent of the participants was never taken (Stobbe, 2011). History also reveals that POWs have long been subjected to pain and human rights violation through various medical experiments. The WWII era of Nazi doctors provides an avid account of such atrocities. Even before that, Mississippi inmates were subjected to malnutrition by Dr. Joseph Goldberger in 1915 to demonstrate that dietary deficiencies caused pellagra (Ling, 2007). In other experiments, prisoners of WWII were enlisted for studies that could assist soldiers. For example, anti-malaria drugs were tested on prisoners in Statesville Penitentiary, Illinois, to help soldiers fighting in the battlefield (Ling, 2007). During this time, period trials under "Nuremberg Code” were rejected by U.S. doctors saying that it only applied to atrocities carried out by Nazi doctors. A huge boom in U.S. pharmaceutical industry was experienced in late 1950s and approximately half the human subjects of medical experimentation were prisoners (Ling, 2007). However, in late 1960s, two human medical experiments changed public attitudes towards such studies. The first experiment took place in 1963 in Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in New York when old patients were infected with cancer cells to see the reaction of their bodies (University, 1966). No consent of the patients was taken as, according to doctors, it was not required because the cells were harmless. A state investigation was carried out on the matter, and it was advised that any such future experiment would require written consent of the subjects. The second series of tests were carried out at Staten Island from 1963-66, where mentally ill children of Willow Brook State School were infected with a hepatitis virus in order to find out the effects of gamma globulin (Foxx, 2011b). Along with these two experiments, the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment also surfaced in 1972, which ignited a large amount of critiques from general public and media. Such critique and public outcry forced the U.S. government to introduce reforms. In one such reform introduced in 1970s, the inmates in U.S. prisons were excluded from all types of human medical experimentation. The reaction continued, and in 2010 the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly apologized for Tuskegee Syphilis experiment conducted without the knowledge or consent of the government (Bazell, 2010). In order to stop human rights abuses in the name of medical research, the academic community has developed guidelines which govern employment of human subject for experimental purposes. With the passage of Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, Nuremberg Code in 1947 and declaration of Helinski in 1964, the concept of voluntary consent of participant in medical experimentation emerged (Bernat, 2008). In order to curb potential human rights abuse during human medical experimentation, it is critical to examine the ethics of such experimentation. In 1989, Medical ethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan stated that the Holocaust has given rise to the discipline of medical ethics (Leiter, 1989). However, experts argue that while examining these past events today, one should be careful in passing moral judgments. Even so, the majority of the researchers believed that the relevance of these experiments cannot be dismissed in today’s context (Leiter, 1989). The experiments were so grossly immoral that they cannot be completely ignored by taking shelter of principles of ethical relativism. Commenting on the Nazi medical experiments, Alan Buchanan said that moral progress is impossible unless the past events are gauged by the same yardstick used to gauge the present events (Foxx, 2011b). The legitimacy of moral judgment should not be affected by passage of time. Although 65 years have elapsed since the Nazi experiments, time does not lessen the atrocities inflicted on subjects. Some scientists defend Nazi experiments by stating that there was a war in progress, which warrants deferment of usual norms and ethics. However, many others believe that since Germany was at war in unusual circumstances, extraordinary exception to human rights was required and moral judgment on these issues negated the principals of ethical relativism (Foxx, 2011b). Over the past many decades, a number of rules and regulations has been formulated in order to protect human rights abuse; however, researchers and bioethicists say that these lack consistencies among government agencies. Moreover, these regulations are only applicable to the federally funded research projects (Foxx, 2011b). This entails that if an immoral or cruel human medical experiment is conducted in private capacity, it cannot be legally pursued. Leading Professor of History of Medicine and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Dr. Susan Lederer confirmed many cruel and unethical studies in the past and also opined that there may be many such cruelties, which are yet to be discovered (Hansen, 2011). The Director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics and noted ethicist Eric Meslin, alarmingly stated that such experiments are even possible in the U.S. today as the system is still not foolproof (Hansen, 2011). Same opinion was held by Dr. Robert Califf, Vice Chancellor of Duke University, who opined that there is no hundred percent guarantee that such things will not happen again. (Hansen, 2011) Despite laws and regulations in place, relatively limited litigations have been filed against medical negligence or human right abuses during human medical experimentation. One of the main factors which tended to support this fact is that hospitals were protected by law against law suits on medical malpractices, which disallowed the aggrieved to seek protection from law even though they were seriously harmed (Gorski, 2011). Another reason for limited charges against medical malpractices was the silence of witnesses. Participants of medical experiments resorted to avoid testifying in such lawsuits may be because of pressures from peer and mostly due to the pressure of losing medical coverage or insurance, seclusion from society or loss of medical privileges enjoyed at the hospital (Gorski, 2011). However, things have changed a lot in today’s world. Nowadays, more such lawsuits are being filed, perused, and even the dearth of witnesses is almost over. The society today is more aware of the fact that the moral judgments which we pass today with respect to the past events have a profound impact on the threshold of morality which we set for ourselves. Only if the Nazi experiments are judged as violations of human rights and medical ethics, will we be able to comment on the human rights violations today. The validity of morality in the present era depends on the rejection of arguments regarding ethical relativism (Annas & Edward, 1992). The horrific medical experimentation conducted around the world, particularly those conducted by Nazis in concentration camps, had persuaded the human society of the fact that there should be clear set of ethical principles applied during such experiments (Bernat, 2008). The notion of doing a service to the society should not supersede or serve as a justification for unethical or even cruel behavior during the experiments. The Nuremberg Code noticeably states that voluntary consent of the participants in the medical experiment is mandatory (Annas & Edward, 1992). This principle precedes a very overt clarification of requirements regarding obtaining voluntary consent, just to ensure that the principle is not twisted in anyone’s favor. A full disclosure is necessary for an ethically valid voluntary consent (Gorski, 2011). This warrant that subjects are thoroughly briefed about the purpose of the experiment, the advantages and disadvantages of the study, the potential harms, pain and side effects which they would be required to bear and long-term effects of the research on the health of the participants (Gorski, 2011). Dishonesty of any level in giving away this information to human subject makes the integrity of the process vulnerable. The anonymity and confidentiality of the participants should be guaranteed, and the subjects should willingly participate in the study, without any kind of pressure or coercion (Hansen, 2011). Moreover, it also entails that it should be ensured that human subjects understand everything completely and are given ample opportunity to question any fact laid down in front of them. Competency of the participants to provide consent should also be considered, and a suitable attorney may be provided, in case the participants lack such a competency. Informed consent also necessitates a written consent document which clearly illustrates all pros and cons of study, in easy to understand language and format. (Hansen, 2011) In regulations like Nuremberg Code, the consent of patient is considered of prime importance (Annas & Edward, 1992). Admittedly, no participant will give its consent for an unreasonable experiment, may it be the ones carried out by Nazis or the usual therapeutic experiments. Mostly, participants are unaware of the technical parameters of the experiment and tend to believe whatever “bright side” the physician portrays and hence concede to participate. However, this kind of consent is based on half information and cannot be called consent at all. Some researches go a long way to find the cure for a disease which is wreaking havoc in the society. They are not only interested in the cure of the disease but also its progression in the human body. This point suggests that researchers will continue to harm patients for the good of society unless strict laws are implemented. Another problem here may be that physicians see ethical practices as red tapism in their already under-financed, difficult research. However, this does not imply that they intentionally devise an unethical plan to inflict harm on the subjects; they just believe that the outcome of the research is much more vital for the society than the sufferings or even death of some participants. The resolution of this problem does not lie in teaching ethical practices to the physicians. They already know that form the medical school. The solution is to stop overzealous researchers from breaching ethical codes. In times of war, many young men were subjected to experiments which they never volunteered for “the good of society." So were the prisoners during WWII, and so can be done even today when there is no war because disease is always a menace to society. However, the bottom line here is that medical experiments without voluntary and informed consent are completely wrong. Many researchers argue here that medical research in which participants are guilty prisoners is correct. They opine that prisoners are also a part of society who had sinned in their lives and must do something to undo their sinful acts. Voluntary consent, however, is still necessary in this scenario since despite being prisoners, they still have the right to self-determination. Many also believe that reduction in punishment in such prisoners should not be an option as they volunteered for the study and would amount to coercion, thus defying voluntary participation. There are many ethical issues with this kind of notion, and this idea may not be able to blend with the norms of society. With huge advancements in the field of medicine, a more humanistic approach form the researchers is expected. Medical research should not in any way be taken as unqualified obligation. An unhurried progress may not harm humanity as much as attrition of our moral and ethical values. It should also be borne in mind that existence of unethical people in society means existence of unethical researchers. Strict regulations must therefore be implemented to protect the participants. However, it should also be remembered that a balance must be struck between protecting the subjects and allowing unethical researches. Going too far to side with the subjects entails that it would put a full stop to the research, and going to the extremes, on the other side, would give birth to Nazi experiments. The balance can be obtained by allowing informed consent to the patients, free from any type of coercion and making the process simple for the researchers so that they may not run away from the field with a fear of protecting patients. References Annas, J. & Edward, R., G. (1992). The Nazi doctors and the Nuremberg code : Human rights in human experimentation. (p. 98). Oxford University Press. Bazell, R. (2010, Oct 01). Sorry: Us apologizes for syphilis and gonorrhea experiments on Guatemalans. Common Dreams. Retrieved from http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/01-6 Bernat, J. (2008). Ethical issues in neurology. (p. 469). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Dahlin, D. (2010). Are epidemics and vaccinations billion dollar scam. (p. 128). AuthorHouse. Foxx, G. (2011 a). Caught up in the boogie woogie world. 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