remember - it was academics who supported eugenics in the 20s- and perhaps that was kinder.

I fear the currently rumblings that I hear of bringing back prisoner experimentation are accurate.  We prosecuted the Nazis at Nurenburg... for this very act.  The result of those trials led to the creation of precepts or a code of human experimentation.  The first of which was violated in the 50s and 60s by a Penn professor.  Sadly, to even discuss bringing back prisoner experimentation without full and open university books is unconsionable.  This is very personal to me as it it speaks to a set of people who by accident of intelligence, chance and luck are in positions of power within academia.  They are not held to the same standard of behavior that you and I are held.

The Nuremberg Code:

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.  This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.....

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.  

6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.

9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.

10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject

Sentenced to Science
One Black Man's Story of Imprisonment in America
By Allen M. Hornblum
and
Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison: A True Story of Abuse and Exploitation in the Name of Medical Science (1998).



-- Modified on 11/27/2007 6:28:38 AM