The Associated Press article of past medical testing done on humans exposes the dark side of science. In the Associated Press article, it detailed past controversial medical tests done 40 to 80 years ago to prisoners, mental patients, public service employees, and children by researchers giving them diseases and viruses in the name of science. The Associated Press found more than 40 studies done in creation of the article.
The presidential bioethics commission gave a government apology in late-February for federal doctors infecting prison inmates and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. In a study done in 1957, federal researchers sprayed the Asian flu virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Maryland in comparison to other inmates who were given an a vaccine for the virus.
Another controversial experiment was a study done in 1942, where a federally funded study injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients in a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Michigan then re-injected the flu several months later into the patients.
Also, public service employees at the University of Minnesota, in late 1940s, were injected with malaria and starved for five days. Children were not even safe from these types of research; children were given hepatitis orally and by injections to see if they could be cured with gamma globulin at Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation.
The ethics involved into the decision to test on humans best describes our value towards human life in our society. I do value human life with respect, but there is a part of me that would sacrifice human life for the greater good of many, including myself.
Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4PXG4jtSRdvLCrA6kCHd6qiZNVQ?docId=152304f23a2e42c0a628408f318d5b47
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