Vulnerable populations and morally tainted experiments

Bioethics

Volumn 11, Issue 3-4, 1997, Pages 256-264

  Luna, Florencia ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; ARTICLE; BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; ETHICAL THEORY; ETHICS; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; INFORMED CONSENT; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; MEDICAL RESEARCH; MISCELLANEOUS NAMED GROUPS; NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PUBLISHING; RECUMBENCY; RESEARCH; RESEARCH SUBJECT; SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT; VULNERABLE POPULATION;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE;

BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH; DECEPTION; DEVELOPING COUNTRIES; DISCLOSURE; EDITORIAL POLICIES; ETHICAL THEORY; ETHICS; HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION; HUMANS; INFORMED CONSENT; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; INTERNATIONALITY; NATIONAL SOCIALISM; PERSONS; POLITICAL SYSTEMS; PUBLISHING; RESEARCH; RESEARCH SUBJECTS; SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT; VULNERABLE POPULATIONS;

EID: 0031185241     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00064     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. Katz, Jay 'Letter to the Editor', The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 275, N14, Oct 1966, p. 790 (my italics).
2. I want to differentiate between two controversies here. I'll be arguing, against publishing unethical research as an editorial policy (Katz proposal in the NEJM letter); though I do agree with Katz and Pozos - contra Berger - about the importance of debating about unethical experiments. The second controversy is related to Berger's comment: 'It is imperative that any Nazi medical data or other unethically obtained information under consideration for use should be subjected to scientific scrutiny before embarking on an ethical dialogue. In the event that the work matches or resembles the flawed standards of Dachau effort, it will be rejected because of its scientific shortcomings and a futile, or even harmful, dialogue will be thereby avoided' Berger, R., 'Nazi Science: Comments on the Validation of the Dachau Human Hypothermia Experiments' in When medicine went Mad ed. A. Caplan, Humana Press, 1992, p. 133 (my italics). See Katz, J. and Pozos, R.: 'The Dachau Hypothermia Study: An Ethical and Scientific Commentary' in A. Caplan, op. cit. for a different approach.
3. I want to differentiate between two controversies here. I'll be arguing, against publishing unethical research as an editorial policy (Katz proposal in the NEJM letter); though I do agree with Katz and Pozos - contra Berger - about the importance of debating about unethical experiments. The second controversy is related to Berger's comment: 'It is imperative that any Nazi medical data or other unethically obtained information under consideration for use should be subjected to scientific scrutiny before embarking on an ethical dialogue. In the event that the work matches or resembles the flawed standards of Dachau effort, it will be rejected because of its scientific shortcomings and a futile, or even harmful, dialogue will be thereby avoided' Berger, R., 'Nazi Science: Comments on the Validation of the Dachau Human Hypothermia Experiments' in When medicine went Mad ed. A. Caplan, Humana Press, 1992, p. 133 (my italics). See Katz, J. and Pozos, R.: 'The Dachau Hypothermia Study: An Ethical and Scientific Commentary' in A. Caplan, op. cit. for a different approach.
4. Brackbill, Yvonne and Hellegers, André; 'Ethics and Editors' Hastings Center Report, April 1980, vol. 10, N 2, p. 22 (my italics).
5. Ibid.
6. An exception to this claim may be the Japanese 'death factories' in China, but they would be included in the previous pattern of war and authoritarianism.
7. As David Rothman says: 'In part, this silence may have represented a postwar eagerness to repress the memory of atrocities. But more important, the events described at Nuremberg were not perceived by researchers or commentators to be directly relevant to the American scene. The violations had been the work of Nazis, not doctors; the guilty parties were Hitler's henchmen, not scientists.' Rothman, David; Strangers at the Bedside, Basic Books, USA, pp. 62-63.
8. Freedman, Benjamin, 'Moral analysis and the use of Nazi experimental results' in A. Caplan, op. cit.
9. Findings of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentation can provide various examples (plutonium injections).
10. Angell, Marcia, 'The Nazi Hypothermia Experiments and Unethical Research Today', New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 322, N20, May 1990, p. 1463.
11. Recent analysis of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentation points out that in research with plutonium injections there is quite strong evidence 'that doctors did not tell these patients that they were being injected with a new radioactive material as part of an experiment designed to protect workers'. 'To omit the fact that the substance is radioactive is to leave out an element that is very likely material to a potential subject's deliberative process'. Macklin, Ruth 'Disagreement, Consensus, and Moral Integrity', Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Vol. 6, N 3, Sept 1996, p. 293.
12. I'm thinking not only of researchers in developing countries but also of researchers in developed countries that could be 'tempted' by easier conditions in the developing world.
13. In Argentina, for example, we have had a strong dictatorship with an absolute disrespect for human rights and even now, corruption is too common a practice.
14. Angell, Marcia, op. cit.
15. This is not peculiar to developing countries, but it is another feature that, added to the previous, helps the promotion of unethical research.
16. Henry Beecher 'Ethics and Clinical Research' NEJM 74 (1966), 1354-60.
17. Robert Levine, 'Ethical Considerations on the Publishing of the Results of Research Involving Human Subjects', Clinical Research, Vol 21 (4), p. 763.
18. Angell, Marcia, op. cit.
19. US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel, Washington DC, 1973.
20. I have given some broad criteria for this distinction but I acknowledge this issue should be worked further.