Unethical Human Experimentation Should be Outlawed

1338 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Unethical animal experimentation

Unethical Human Experimentation Should be Outlawed

Human experimentation has been in practice for centuries and it was not until recently that it has been questioned. By definition human experimentation is when a researcher deliberately induces or alters a person's physical or mental functions. Human experimentation is preformed in ways that might prove therapeutic to the patient, but for which there is as yet insufficient evidence to make this reasonably certain. It can also be preformed in ways that will not be of any conceivable benefit to the particular patient, but which may advance scientific knowledge and human welfare. Although many wonderful medical discoveries have been made through human experimentation, it is also filled with many examples of unethical abuses of patients and their overall well being. Therefore, human experimentation should be refined to make more safe and ethical experiments.

There are many ways human experimentation can be unethical. Most experiments where humans were used prove to be unethical due to abuse by the researcher who is conducting the experiment. Populations used for the experiments are often times chosen unethically. Researchers commonly choose populations that are easy to exploit. They choose prisoners, children, mentally ill, or patients on their deathbeds. All of these populations give consent to experiments based on little knowledge or because they believe their life has no purpose. Researchers should be choosing populations that understand the meaning of consent and what it means to be involved in a particular experiment.

There are many reasons why choosing prisoners, children, mentally ill, and patients on their deathbeds is unethical. According to Susan ...

... middle of paper ...

...e evidence base for decision-making in all areas of medicine, and they can be especially important for patients with serious or life threatening health conditions that have limited treatment options. For those patients, participation in a clinical trial-a formal investigation of the effects of an experimental intervention on people-may offer the best chance of finding an effective treatment. (1)

Human experimentation needs to continue but with a more ethical approach. Laws need to be made to ensure that patients are being treated ethically. Researchers need to follow guidelines for choosing populations, ensuring the safety and well being of their patients, receiving consent, and giving a through account of what exactly the experiment entails. If all of this was done, human experimentation would be looked upon much more highly and everyone could benefit from it.

Show More
Related

  • Let's Put an End to Animal Research, Testing, and Experimentation

    2009 Words  | 5 Pages

    Without animal research, cures for such diseases as typhoid, diphtheria, and polio might never have existed. Without animal research, the development of antibiotics and insulin would have been delayed. Without animal research, many human beings would now be dead. However, because of animal testing, 200,000 dogs, 50,000 cats, 60,000 primates, 1.5 million hamsters, and uncounted millions of rats and mice are experimented upon and die each year, as living fodder for the great human scientific machine. Some would say that animal research is an integral part of progress; unfortunately, this is often true. On the whole, animal testing is a necessary evil that should be reduced and eliminated whenever possible.

    Read More

  • Ethics and Dilemmas of Physician-Assisted Suicide

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    When patients suffering from serious health conditions are towards the end of their lives, they are given an option that can change their lives and the lives of those around them. This option is praised as an act of preserving dignity, but also condemned as an act of weakness. The terminally ill, as well as the disabled and the elderly, are given the choice to end their lives by the method of suicide involving the assistance of a physician. For several years, this method has been under debate on whether this option is ethical or unethical. Not only is this defective option unethical, but it puts ill and elderly patients under pressures that can lead to them choosing this alternative rather than the fight for their lives.

    Read More

  • Physician Assisted Suicide Essay

    2048 Words  | 5 Pages

    There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.

    Read More

  • The Necessities of Animal Experimentation

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    Putting aside the countless claims that animal experimentation is unethical and should be banned, it is incredibly necessary and useful for mankind. Experimenting on humans is inhumane and completely immoral, while animals that do not function in the same way humans do should be used in medical research and to test the safety of various products. If animal testing were illegal, how would worldly corporations determine the safety of products? Surely the valuable lives of human beings are not essential to risk, hence the reason that animal experimenting is necessary. In addition, medical research would be in great jeopardy if were animals were not permitted to be experimented on. Medical industries have already come so far in treating multiple ailments due to the tests performed on animals. Alas, it is safe to say that for the continued thriving of our society, forbidding animal experimentation would be detrimental.

    Read More

  • Considerations of Human Subject Research

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    As early as the 19th century, human experiments have been performed in the U.S, which later were characterized as being unethical. Most of the experiments were performed illegally, and without the consent of the subjects being tested. The Majority of the tests being performed were on children and the mentally ill. A large number of those subjects were poor, minorities, and prisoners in many of the studies.

    Read More

  • Tuskegee Experiment Pros And Cons

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Belmont Report distinguishes three center moral standards in regards to all human subject experimentation: autonomy, respect for persons, beneficence and justice. Autonomy alludes to the right of an individual to determine what they will or will not partake in. Respect for persons requires medical researchers to obtain informed consent from their subjects, which means that participants must be given precise information about their circumstances and treatment options so that they can decide what is best for them. Beneficence means that all test subjects must be informed about the advantages as well as all the possible risks of the treatment(s) they consent to participate in. The principle of justice includes individual and societal justice.

    Read More

  • animal experimentation: pros and cons

    1548 Words  | 4 Pages

    Animal activists definition of "animal experimentation" is the infliction of pain onto animals to see their reaction. Humans use animals because we don't want to experience this ourselves. Animal testing is inhumane, for example the "Draize Eye Test". This test is where the animal is restrained, and eyes clipped open so they cannot blink for days, and literally put shampoo in their to see the effect. They do this to examine how it will effect humans.

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues In Animal Testing

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    It should be noted that, animals are metabolically, physiologically, and anatomically unlike from human beings, hence, the tests working on animals can surely prove to be unsuccessful in human beings (Animal Experimentation). Animals react very differently compared to human beings, and therefore, tests done on animals can be hazardous when done on human beings. In addition, even though humans and animals share a number of biological traits, they have biological differences and this is enough reason to question the data obtained from animal experiments and is to be used on humans. It is very wrong to subject animals to cruel procedures in the name of promoting the future human health and this denies them a normal life, yet they are at liberty to yet there is no prove that these tests can work well on human beings. For example, guinea pigs are used in animal experimentation, yet a guinea pig and a human being react very differently to some drugs, for instance penicillin is toxic to a guinea pig, and a cure to human beings. This proves that, any test done on a guinea pig will automatically be unsafe for human beings. Another example is that, drugs that are effective on dogs, or other animals can fail to be effective on human beings. Therefore, it is important to note that, animal testing has its

    Read More

  • Animal Experimentation

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    For years now people have been using animal experimentation to create new ways to help save the human race. There are people who believe that it does help, and that it is necessary to continue, while others oppose and want to fight for the elimination of animal experimentation. Scientists fight for the cures needed to help man kind, but struggle to do so as people fight against their work in progress. But as Jennifer A. Hurley stated, “History has already shown that animal experimentation is not essential to medical progress.” Stuart W.G. Derbyshire believes “The best hopes to treat or cure any number of diseases all rely in the current animal experiments.” Both sides have evidence that can allow both to be proven correct. But there are negative arguments that can prove the other wise. The real question to ask is, Does animal experimentation really help advance medical research?

    Read More

  • Nazi Human Experiments

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    This report is over human experiments conducted by various governments over several decades. The governments involved include, but are not limited to, the Nazis, the soviets and even America. Some of these experiments that were tested on these people were very disgusting and extremely cruel.

    Read More

  • Animal Research and Testing, Is it Ethical?

    2169 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout centuries medical research has been conducted on animals. “Animals were used in early studies to discover how blood circulates through the body, the effect of anesthesia, and the relationship between bacteria and disease” (AMA 59). Experiments such as these seem to be outdated and actually are by today’s means, scientists now study commonly for three general purposes: (1) biomedical and behavioral research, (2) education, (3) drug and product testing (AMA 60). These three types of experiments allow scientists to gain vast amounts of knowledge about human b...

    Read More

  • The Ethical Structure Behind Human Experimentation

    3400 Words  | 7 Pages

    The dark history of human experimentation began with the clarification between experimentation and treatment. The larger public began to notice experimenters ethical neglect for their subjects in the early 1960s. Those charged with administering research funding took note of the public furor generated by the exposure of gross abuses in medical research. These included uncontrolled promotional distribution of thalidomide throughout the United States, labeled as an experimental drug; the administration of cancer cells to senile and debilitated patients at the Brooklyn Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital; and the uncontrolled distribution of LSD to children at Harvard Medical Center through Professors Alpert and Leary. Most important was Henry Beechers 1966 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, detaili...

    Read More

  • Essay On Social Work

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    Following the ethical codes and getting approval from the Institutional Review Board (if the study has human subjects) can really decrease the possibility of any harm being done to the participants. A perfect example of a research study that had lots of things unethical practices was the Tuskegee Syphilis study:

    Read More

  • Unethical Experiments

    1373 Words  | 3 Pages

    Unethical experiments have occurred long before people considered it was wrong. The protagonist of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study ( Vollmann 1448 ).The reasons for the experiments were to understand, prevent, and treat disease, and often there is not a substitute for a human subject. This is true for study of illnesses such as depression, delusional states that manifest themselves partly by altering human subjectivity, and impairing cognitive functioning. Concluding, some experiments have the tendency to destroy the lives of the humans that have been experimented on.

    Read More

  • Animal Testing Should be Banned

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    Animals are used in research to develop new medicines and for scientists to test the safety of the medicines. This animal testing is called vivisection. Research is being carried out at universities, medical schools and even in primary and elementary schools as well as in commercial facilities which provide animal experiments to industry. (UK Parliament) In addition, animals are also used in cosmetic testing, toxicology tests, “defense research” and “xenotransplantation”. All around the world, a huge amount of animals are sentenced to life in a laboratory cage and they are obliged to feel loneliness and pain. In addition scientists causing pain, most drugs that pas successfully in animals fail in humans. It is qualified as a bad science. Above all, animals have rights not to be harmed even though the Animal Welfare Act does not provide them even with minimal protection. The law does not find it necessary to use current alternatives to animals, even if they are obtainable. Animal testing should be banned due to animal rights, ethical issues, alternative ways and the unreliability of test results in humans.

    Read More

More about Unethical Human Experimentation Should be Outlawed

Open Document