Medical Experimentation

Medical experimentation is the use of human subjects to evaluate, test, and monitor the effects of medical treatments and practices on the human body. Researchers have long relied on medical experimentation as a means to advance scientific knowledge in treating myriad diseases and conditions. Historically, however, it has been chiefly members of ethnic minorities and socially marginalized groups who have been used in such experiments. This has had profound implications for medical ethics generally and for the way in which members of these groups have constructed meaning and interacted with the medical establishment and government-sponsored research. This entry reviews the nature of medical experimentation and uses three case examples to illustrate how ethnic minorities and the socially marginalized have been used in medical experimentation and research.

At its best, medical experimentation adheres to rigorous research protocols that serve to protect human subjects. For example, in the United States, before any prescription drug is made available for mass consumption, pharmaceutical companies are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct clinical trials of the drug's efficacy and safety. This typically involves recruiting individuals who will participate in a study to evaluate the effects of the drug. Participants are randomly assigned to either a group that will receive the drug or a group that will receive a placebo. The effects of the drug, including health consequences and side effects, are monitored. If its effectiveness is high and the associated risks are relatively low (for example, the drug is highly effective in reducing the presence of a disease and death is unlikely to occur from taking it), the drug has a high probability of making it to the market.

This example reflects the ideal form of medical experimentation: All human subjects who participate in medical experimentation are informed of the purpose, methods, and risks of the experimentation, and subjects must give their consent to participate. This is known as informed consent. Ultimately, the benefits of the experimentation for the advance of science should outweigh any potential human costs or risks.

Unfortunately, these conditions have not always been met, and, moreover, society's most vulnerable and marginalized have been used to advance the agenda of science and industry. It can be argued that medical experimentation reflects the stratification of society and reinforces the inequality of groups. Consequently, members of marginalized groups such as African Americans, Jews, the poor, children, people with mental illness, and the prison population have been exploited and used to test myriad conditions on the human body. Moreover, researchers conducting medical experimentation have not always adhered to the practice of soliciting informed consent from participants and, at worst, have used deception and coercion to exploit participants as human subjects. The use of such methods has sometimes resulted in extreme harm to participants—including suffering and death.