Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Ethical and Legal Regulation of Medical Practice and Research
- 46 The Medical Market place, the Patient, and the Absence of Medical Ethics in Early Modern Europe and North America
- 47 The Legal and Quasilegal Regulation of Practitioners and Practice in the United States
- 48 The Ethics of Experimenting on Animal Subjects
- 49 The Ethics of Experimenting on Human Subjects
- 50 The Historical Development of International Codes of Ethics for Human Subjects Research
- 51 International Ethics of Human Subjects Research in the Late Twentieth Century
- B Medical Ethics, Imperialism, and the Nation-State
- C Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
49 - The Ethics of Experimenting on Human Subjects
from Ethical and Legal Regulation of Medical Practice and Research
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Ethical and Legal Regulation of Medical Practice and Research
- 46 The Medical Market place, the Patient, and the Absence of Medical Ethics in Early Modern Europe and North America
- 47 The Legal and Quasilegal Regulation of Practitioners and Practice in the United States
- 48 The Ethics of Experimenting on Animal Subjects
- 49 The Ethics of Experimenting on Human Subjects
- 50 The Historical Development of International Codes of Ethics for Human Subjects Research
- 51 International Ethics of Human Subjects Research in the Late Twentieth Century
- B Medical Ethics, Imperialism, and the Nation-State
- C Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Experimentation on human beings may be as old as medicine itself. The search for new therapies – drugs, devices, and procedures – required that someone go first, some individual participate in the trial of an innovative treatment, and experience both the risks and benefits of that participation. Although these risks and benefits remain for research subjects, the norms governing research with human subjects, the understanding of the ethical responsibilities of investigators and the rights of research subjects has undergone a profound transformation over the course of the twentieth century. Once implicit and informal understandings of the limits of appropriate experimentation have become codified into federal regulations that require (in the United States) written and informed consent of participants and institutional review of the proposed research (see Chapter 50). Ethical issues in the use of human subjects remain (for example, the conduct of human research by Western investigators in developing countries, an issue intensified by the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic), but there are some legal protections for human subjects and more clearly defined responsibilities for individual researchers and their institutions (see Chapter 51).
Legal restrictions on the use of laboratory animals preceded legal protections for human subjects by decades or more (see Chapter 48). The moral status of animal experimentation remains, in many respects, more highly contested than human experimentation.
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- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics , pp. 558 - 565Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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