It is not ethical, i thinck you only can experiment with people who voluntary offer himself and without condition like if you participating in experiment you will win youre freedom.
I believe it is ethical to experiment with humans as long as they express their explicit consent, as in volunteering for it. They should also be fully informed about the experiment and its possible effects and it must be done by professionals with exhaustive monitoring.
Throughout history, all vaccines / medications / drugs / experiments have had to be applied to a group of people to see their effectiveness. That group of people are volunteers and have previously been well informed about the entire process.
In this case, the experiment has not been ethical. I could claim that the doctor has taken advantage of the need and desperation of these prisoners to get out of jail in exchange for conducting the experiment. I would have done it too if it was the case.
But at no point have they been informed about the experiment, the consequences, and the side effects. Even these prisoners could have died and they are human, after all. If they had been informed about the objective of the study, the process and the negative consequences it would have on their health, and they would have agreed, then it would have been ethical.
I believe that in medicine, the primary focus (specially with infectious diseases) is to save the highest number of lives possible. It is in fact a very numeric and cold point of view, but in reality it is the only goal we hace when introducing a new medicament or a new technique into the population: to decrease infection and mortality.
To be able to make these innovative methods work, we need to do research and trials to see how the population reacts. In many cases this means we will have to perform trials with humans for the sake of the global health, and, unfortunately, in some cases, people will react badly to them and suffer the consequences (at times even death will be the outcome in some patients)
However, as it occurred in this case, the outcome can many times be positive, because in this field, we need to have a global view, and think more about the countless lives that can be positively affected, rather than the victims of the study.
Properly controlled studies with human subjects are essential to the development of science. As far as I know, there are laws that control this experiments and can only be done in the fase III of a clinical trial.
In my opinion, there are two points of view to consider, nowadays point of view and Goldberger's time point of view.
If you ask me, at Goldberger's time, people would not have respect for other human beings if the point was science and discoveries, especially human beings of lower social classes, as inmates. However I am not defending or justifying Goldberger's decision of experimenting directly in the prisoners, and by that putting their lives in danger.
From a present point of view, I believe that it's a giant irresponsibility to experiment first hand, on human beings, whether they are from higher social classes or lower social classes. I believe that the studies first must be conducted without human trial, and them when the scientist have the right knowledge and information, the trials in humans can occur, but always in a secure environment. We have the example of the covid trials in human beings.
The way I see it is ethical to work with humans as long as scientists acknowledge the possible secundary effects and patients accept it. Even though, it's risky. A desease first developed in humans need no other vector than the human himself, so we must be extremely thorough with this kind of experiments. But, as my colleague mcororg14 pointed, I believe it makes no difference to experiment with prisoners or free citizens. Prisioners are offered a reward for the experiment, freedom, even more valuable than money. In response to fpintori7, I don't think prisoners are less than current citizens, but it is a reallity that they are in an inferiority condition since they have not the same rights as we do.
I am completely in agreement that they accepted and received something they wanted in return, but the stereotype of society is based on the fact that prisoners are "less than us", which culminates in the decision that they are the first targets of something that is not known whether it is good or not.
I agree with what you are saying, and I'm completely against aiming at certain collectives known as inferior just because we know they'll do anything in order to receive something in exchange. However, we have to bear in mind that in Goldberger's study, the treatment that was administrated to the prisoners couldn't have any negative repercussions on their health. The prisoners were only improving their diet and that supposed a big change coming from their poor diet that caused the disease.
I don't think that's the point. I think the problem was that the tests were done on human prisoners and not just humans, as if they were devalued because they were prisoners and the consequences, if they existed, were not important. I think it should only be dealt with by people who volunteer for it and not by handpicked people simply because they are prisoners.
The thing is they were not hand-picked and forced to participate in the study. They were offered freedom in return for their participation in Goldberger's research, and they all accepted. This kind of selection could be very similar to nowadays' way of volunteering for studies in exchange for something.
As opposed to my classmate, I believe it is ethical to experiment with humans. Adding on to that, I think it's necessary. Scientific trials need to take that last step before putting the product that's being tested on the market, and the target of this last step are humans. In nowadays' pharmaceutical industry, it makes no sense to put something out on the market without knowing the side effects it can have on humans, or being unconscious of its efficiency. It is crucial to experiment with humans to increase our knowledge about our research.
I agree with that! But what I wanted to say was that it's unehtical to do these experiences in prisioners, that I'm sure that they didn't aware about the possible consequences of these study. In my opinion, tests can be realized in humans if they aware about everything that involves the study.
It is not ethical, i thinck you only can experiment with people who voluntary offer himself and without condition like if you participating in experiment you will win youre freedom.
I believe it is ethical to experiment with humans as long as they express their explicit consent, as in volunteering for it. They should also be fully informed about the experiment and its possible effects and it must be done by professionals with exhaustive monitoring.
Throughout history, all vaccines / medications / drugs / experiments have had to be applied to a group of people to see their effectiveness. That group of people are volunteers and have previously been well informed about the entire process.
In this case, the experiment has not been ethical. I could claim that the doctor has taken advantage of the need and desperation of these prisoners to get out of jail in exchange for conducting the experiment. I would have done it too if it was the case.
But at no point have they been informed about the experiment, the consequences, and the side effects. Even these prisoners could have died and they are human, after all. If they had been informed about the objective of the study, the process and the negative consequences it would have on their health, and they would have agreed, then it would have been ethical.
For me it would be ethical. If they are well informed and they find the compensation worthy, why not?
Is it ethical to release prisoners?
I believe that in medicine, the primary focus (specially with infectious diseases) is to save the highest number of lives possible. It is in fact a very numeric and cold point of view, but in reality it is the only goal we hace when introducing a new medicament or a new technique into the population: to decrease infection and mortality.
To be able to make these innovative methods work, we need to do research and trials to see how the population reacts. In many cases this means we will have to perform trials with humans for the sake of the global health, and, unfortunately, in some cases, people will react badly to them and suffer the consequences (at times even death will be the outcome in some patients)
However, as it occurred in this case, the outcome can many times be positive, because in this field, we need to have a global view, and think more about the countless lives that can be positively affected, rather than the victims of the study.
Properly controlled studies with human subjects are essential to the development of science. As far as I know, there are laws that control this experiments and can only be done in the fase III of a clinical trial.
In my opinion, there are two points of view to consider, nowadays point of view and Goldberger's time point of view.
If you ask me, at Goldberger's time, people would not have respect for other human beings if the point was science and discoveries, especially human beings of lower social classes, as inmates. However I am not defending or justifying Goldberger's decision of experimenting directly in the prisoners, and by that putting their lives in danger.
From a present point of view, I believe that it's a giant irresponsibility to experiment first hand, on human beings, whether they are from higher social classes or lower social classes. I believe that the studies first must be conducted without human trial, and them when the scientist have the right knowledge and information, the trials in humans can occur, but always in a secure environment. We have the example of the covid trials in human beings.
The way I see it is ethical to work with humans as long as scientists acknowledge the possible secundary effects and patients accept it. Even though, it's risky. A desease first developed in humans need no other vector than the human himself, so we must be extremely thorough with this kind of experiments. But, as my colleague mcororg14 pointed, I believe it makes no difference to experiment with prisoners or free citizens. Prisioners are offered a reward for the experiment, freedom, even more valuable than money. In response to fpintori7, I don't think prisoners are less than current citizens, but it is a reallity that they are in an inferiority condition since they have not the same rights as we do.
I am completely in agreement that they accepted and received something they wanted in return, but the stereotype of society is based on the fact that prisoners are "less than us", which culminates in the decision that they are the first targets of something that is not known whether it is good or not.
I don't think that's the point. I think the problem was that the tests were done on human prisoners and not just humans, as if they were devalued because they were prisoners and the consequences, if they existed, were not important. I think it should only be dealt with by people who volunteer for it and not by handpicked people simply because they are prisoners.
As opposed to my classmate, I believe it is ethical to experiment with humans. Adding on to that, I think it's necessary. Scientific trials need to take that last step before putting the product that's being tested on the market, and the target of this last step are humans. In nowadays' pharmaceutical industry, it makes no sense to put something out on the market without knowing the side effects it can have on humans, or being unconscious of its efficiency. It is crucial to experiment with humans to increase our knowledge about our research.
I don't think that it's ethical to do human studies. It's completely incomprehensible, even if these humans are prisoners.