Ethical research issues, especially those pertaining to human research are a matter of great concern to all parties involved. In both the public and the researcher’s view, there is a need for sound safeguards that protect the subject, and this applies to private and public enterprises. In the early days of the 20th century, most safeguards were entirely left under the judgment of the investigator (Kroll, 1993). Such a mindset stemmed from the notion or idea that a research topic was more important than the dignity of the human subject or their welfare. This happened for a long time until the enactment of significant milestone legislation. Inasmuch as there is enforcement of such rules, there is a compromise to the integrity of traditional experimental research. Such compromise stems from political and social issues that oppress freedom of inquiry, rendering particular lines of inquiry controversial and sensitive. Often, unethical research leads to tainted results due to the unprofessional methods of obtaining data. Such mentality of thinking is that of the end justifies the means, and this has propagated unethical medical experiments, especially in the US.
In the United States of America, as early as the 1930s the National Institute of Health denied funding, on various occasions, of proposals that did not bring about tangible results. Such a bearing offered the chance to do everything possible to get desired results, which meant the conduction of high-risk experiments regardless of human dignity. In a paper called Experiments in torture (Sullivan & Baker, 2010), the United States is said to use enhanced experimentation techniques and in the process, the subjects were exposed to unethical experimentation and research. There was the use of inhumane approaches such as waterboarding, and the requirement that medical personnel should watch and collect data to design and deploy subsequent procedures. Also, there was the toleration of unethical experimentation whereby investigators worked to find out the effectiveness of sequential or simultaneous interrogation procedures.
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In addition, the existence of the sleep deprivation policy is proof enough of the inhumane research policies of the United States. This Enhanced Interrogation Program (EIP) clearly showed ethical abuse in the medical research field. Numerous other experiments were done in the US that was not ethically sound. Among them include the infection of influenza to mentally ill patients by virologists from the University of Michigan in 1941, the unwarranted simulation of biological warfare attack by the US Navy through the spray of huge quantities of biological vectors, the infection of prisoners with viral hepatitis among other biological agents, human radiation experiments and those involving radioactive materials. In 1946 a study in Guatemala involved US researchers using prostitutes to spread sexually transmitted diseases to inmates and insane asylum patients in order to test the effectiveness of penicillin in treating these diseases.
A look at history teaches us the unethical nature of medical experimentation conducted in the US. One of the most abused practices was the use of consent. In 1974, the Congress passed the National Research Act but this was done due to the many reported cases of biomedical abuse. Among the cases was the one of the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital (JCDH). This study, conducted in 1963 by Chester M. Southam aimed at comprehending the body’s ability to reject cancer cells and its relation to cancer or debilitation (Elliot, 2017). According to previous studies, it was noted that there was a possibility that healthy people rejected cancer cells quickly. In research, especially involving human experimentation, the observance of the philosophy of ‘do no harm’ is of utmost importance. Alongside this philosophy is the practice of beneficence, which accords necessary benefits to the participants. Such research practices ensure integral research that observes human dignity and ensures valid hypothesis. However, in the JCDH, there was no observance of none of these procedures. No approval was sort and no committee reviewed its implementation strategies and policy. There was no respect of persons and their anonymity and all this was inhumane subjection. Inasmuch as the patients had chronic diseases, it was uncalled for and unprofessional to subject them to the exposure of live cancer cells.
In the US, unethical medical research practices have also spread to homeless victims. Among the key causes of homelessness include social exclusion and poverty; such factors have led to an unprecedented level of scarcity and depravation (Shinn, 2010). To make the situation worse is the taking advantage of such negative circumstances by medical practitioners and researchers to conduct their own experiments regardless of ethics and human dignity. In getting homeless people involved in research, most researchers use trickery, false explanations, and impositions. Other unscrupulous researchers use inducements such as payment and the hope of getting moved up the waiting list. Such duping is prevalent, especially among the homeless. Lately, homeless people, many having acute mental illnesses, are actively used by contract companies, which work for larger pharmaceuticals, to run tests on experimental drugs. When thinking of pharmaceutical research, most people have the idea of this highly technical research carried out in high-end medical facilities. However, the case is different; these large corporations employ the use of outsourced clinical studies to run experiments and trials that are cost and time friendly, which has led to the use of participants such as homeless people.
In conclusion, medical experiments conducted in the United States are more often unethical. Whereas the medical research fraternity does its best to elevate the high research malpractice, the need for results often outweighs the risks involved, especially to the subjects. More often, researchers value results and hypothesis more than human life. This has led to unethical experiments whose practices are observed to date.
References
Elliot, D. (2017). Recruitment of homeless people for drug trials raises serious ethical issues, U bioethicist says. MinnPost. Retrieved 29 March 2017, from https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2014/08/recruitment-homeless-people-drug-trials-raises-serious-ethical-issues-u-bioet
Kroll, W. (1993). Ethical Issues in Human Research. American Academy of Physical Education, 45, 32-44.
Shinn, M. (2010). Homelessness, Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United States and Europe. European Journal of Homelessness, 4, 19-37.
Sullivan, K., & Baker, I. (2010). EXPERIMENTS IN TORTURE: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program. Physicians for Human Rights, 1-26.
