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The Dark Side of Medical Experimentation: Why Are Patients Used as "Experimental Materials"?
Many experiments on human subjects throughout American history are now considered unethical because they were conducted without the subjects' informed consent. Although the frequency of such incidents has decreased today, unethical experiments involving human subjects are still occasionally discovered. Some experiments, especially on vulnerable groups such as children, sick people, and the mentally retarded, are still conducted under the guise of "medical treatment," which raises many ethical and legal issues.
In the past, many human experiments were conducted in secret, without the knowledge or authorization of Congress.
In past experiments, many subjects were poor, racial minorities or prisoners, and in many cases these experiments did not comply with the laws of the United States at the time. For example, the surgical experiments conducted by J. Marion Sims were criticized by many. He performed surgeries on African-American women and young girls in the 1840s without using anesthesia, causing them great pain and infection.
One patient had 30 surgeries, a large portion of which she endured infections and failed surgeries.
Unfortunately, this is not the only horrific case. In 1856, an American doctor, Henry Heiman, deliberately injected gonorrhea bacteria into two boys with mental disorders. These actions were considered by the medical community at the time to be contrary to professional ethics. This trend has not disappeared over time and can even be traced back to the 20th century. One high-profile example is the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which began in 1932 and lasted for nearly four decades, during which 398 people were infected. Black men with syphilis were the subjects of research without being informed of their true condition.
Even in 1947, when penicillin became an effective treatment, researchers continued to conceal the truth, allowing participants to continue to expose themselves to the disease.
As the 20th century progressed, this type of experimentation seemed to show no sign of diminishing. During the "Defense Biological Weapons Experiments" in the 1940s, researchers sprayed influenza viruses into the nasal cavities of many mentally ill patients without authorization, which resulted in disturbing consequences. Another experiment, called "Operation Dolphin," even caused citizens to suffer from pneumonia and resulted in deaths.
Many of the targets of shock are at the bottom of American society, and these subjects are not given the ethical attention they deserve.
Even today, these historic actions spark public outrage. Without appropriate protection of subjects and attention to informed consent, these behaviors may be repeated at any time. Many experiments involve subjects who often lack sufficient judgment, which is undoubtedly ethically unacceptable. Because of this, in the face of the unethical experiments of the past, what lessons have the medical community learned today to ensure that future experiments will not deny human dignity and rights?
In this modern era of continuous technological advancement, we are faced with many new challenges and choices. As society's understanding of the ethics of human experimentation deepens, how will future research be conducted?
