by patches70 on Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:42 am
You mean things like the Tuskegee experiment where they gave syphilis secretly to african Americans without their consent under the guise of "free healthcare"? The experiment called for the deliberate non treatment of the disease just to document the effects of untreated syphilis.
Or the 1908 experiment where they gave tuberculosis to children without their consent and a number of them died and others were permanently blinded? They were all orphans BTW.
Or an earlier syphilis experiment done some 20 years before Tuskegee where over a hundred people, including children, were all infected with syphilis? The center that ran the experiment was sued by the victims.
Or the influenza experiments carried out at multiple mental institutions in the early 40's?
Or from 1950 to the late 60's when the US government would air dump Serratia marcescens on cities to simulate the simulated spread of nuclear fallout? The bacteria was thought harmless but there were many cases of people getting sick with pneumonia-like illnesses and a few people died.
Or the hepatitis experiments in the 50's on unsuspecting female prisoners?
Or the cancer experiments on prisoners where they were injected with cancer cells to see if they would develop cancer? Done without their consent or knowledge.
Or the many, many radiation experiments done on unwitting civilians and military?
No types of these experiments should be done without informed consent. Period. It doesn't matter what knowledge is gained from this, it's immoral, unethical and duplicitous. There is no reason to not inform the subjects, them not knowing they are being given a disease doesn't change what happens. I can see hiding true goals of an experiment in something like a psychological experiment where if the subject knows what is going on will cause there to be inaccurate results. Those types of experiments focus on how people think, they don't give them dangerous diseases and let the disease progress untreated just to see what happens.
But giving diseases to people? There reason no consent was sought is because no one in their right mind would ever consent to be infected with hepatitis, syphilis (with the caveat that it had to be lfet untreated, cancer or any of the other horrible things done to people.
The Nazis at the Nuremburg trials that were hung because they performed medical experiments on slaves in the camps claimed as a defense the precedent of experimenting on unsuspecting subjects without informed consent. That defense didn't save them from the hangman's noose, but they had a point, the US had been doing this stuff before and after WWII.
Not a single US government medical researcher has ever been prosecuted for non consented human experimentation.
There is literally no scenario where you need to infect someone secretly with a deadly disease and justify not getting consent using the excuse "if they know what is happening then it could change the results". When you give someone syphilis them knowing about it or not doesn't make not one damn bit of difference. The only excuse which justifies such experiments is that if one were to attempt to get informed consent then no subject would give consent. That right there should tell you something about the nature of these types of experiments.
Anybody conducting such experiments should be put up against a wall and shot dead. If the knowledge gained is really that important, then the experimenters should be willing to give their own lives for the information just like the subjects often do.
How many experimenters would be willing to go through with it if they are told "sure, you run your experiment, document your findings, publish them and afterward you'll be executed". No one would do the experiments then, would they? So one can't really argue that it's that important that these kinds of experiments be done. It's a case of "it's worth it to sacrifice your life because you are just poor white trash, black, poor, an orphan, criminal or in the nuthouse".
f*ck that shit, man. Some doctor infects me with something like that and didn't give me informed consent I'll blow his fucking brains out if I get the chance, spit on his/her corpse and wouldn't feel bad about it in the slightest. Then I'd go for anyone higher up who authorized, condoned or support such a thing until I get myself gunned down in the attempt.