Why is it unethical to incentivize terminally ill / death row inmate volunteering for human experimentation?

[ethereality]

We need to estimate biological response to radiation. In this case, the experiment would involve irradiation until some adverse effect is observed. The standard method is to breed mice, enclose them in rather small cages with five others, irradiate them, kill them. I couldn’t justify deliberately harming mice without their consent (what seems to be evil) for an intended good (data to be used for cancer treatment).

Rather than hurt animals without their consent, it seemed better to me to incentivize death row inmates (or the terminally ill) to volunteer for the same sort of experiment with some reward to compensate them for any incurred damage, of course with full explanation about outcome so they can give informed consent, etc. Yet I’ve been told this is unethical because consent is infringed upon: If they were not approaching death, they would probably not consent. (Likewise for the poor: If they were not poor, they would not consent.) Hence manipulating people in this way is unethical.

I’m not sure I follow this argument. Why are such experiments – or why is such incentivizing immoral? Is it not a good to give people the opportunity to contribute to helping others in a lasting way? Why can’t they be trusted or allowed to decide for themselves if the reward is worth the cost? Would it be unethical for the general public, not only those who know their death is imminent or otherwise those in need?

To put it another way, why is it okay to donate one’s body to science after one’s death, but not to use one’s body for science before one’s death, if one is slated to die soon?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

We need to estimate biological response to radiation. In this case, the experiment would involve irradiation until some adverse effect is observed. The standard method is to breed mice, enclose them in rather small cages with five others, irradiate them, kill them. I couldn’t justify deliberately harming mice without their consent (what seems to be evil) for an intended good (data to be used for cancer treatment).

Rather than hurt animals without their consent, it seemed better to me to incentivize death row inmates (or the terminally ill) to volunteer for the same sort of experiment with some reward to compensate them for any incurred damage, of course with full explanation about outcome so they can give informed consent, etc. Yet I’ve been told this is unethical because consent is infringed upon: If they were not approaching death, they would probably not consent. (Likewise for the poor: If they were not poor, they would not consent.) Hence manipulating people in this way is unethical.

I’m not sure I follow this argument. Why are such experiments – or why is such incentivizing immoral? Is it not a good to give people the opportunity to contribute to helping others in a lasting way? Why can’t they be trusted or allowed to decide for themselves if the reward is worth the cost? Would it be unethical for the general public, not only those who know their death is imminent or otherwise those in need?

To put it another way, why is it okay to donate one’s body to science after one’s death, but not to use one’s body for science before one’s death, if one is slated to die soon?

Is this a serious question? And what does the poll have to do with it?

 

[graciew]

I am speechless…

 

[pianistclare]

I was going to say the same thing.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

Do what?

You don’t want to kill mice without their consent, so you want terminally ill and people on death row to consent to you killing them?

Really? Kill the freaking mice, dude! :nope::whacky::dts:

 

[808Catholic]

We need to estimate biological response to radiation. In this case, the experiment would involve irradiation until some adverse effect is observed. The standard method is to breed mice, enclose them in rather small cages with five others, irradiate them, kill them. I couldn’t justify deliberately harming mice without their consent (what seems to be evil) for an intended good (data to be used for cancer treatment).

Rather than hurt animals without their consent, it seemed better to me to incentivize death row inmates (or the terminally ill) to volunteer for the same sort of experiment with some reward to compensate them for any incurred damage, of course with full explanation about outcome so they can give informed consent, etc. Yet I’ve been told this is unethical because consent is infringed upon: If they were not approaching death, they would probably not consent. (Likewise for the poor: If they were not poor, they would not consent.) Hence manipulating people in this way is unethical.

I’m not sure I follow this argument. Why are such experiments – or why is such incentivizing immoral? Is it not a good to give people the opportunity to contribute to helping others in a lasting way? Why can’t they be trusted or allowed to decide for themselves if the reward is worth the cost? Would it be unethical for the general public, not only those who know their death is imminent or otherwise those in need?

To put it another way, why is it okay to donate one’s body to science after one’s death, but not to use one’s body for science before one’s death, if one is slated to die soon?

As Christians, we are told to care for the very poorest and neediest in society and those would include those in prison and those who face terminal illness. We should not endanger their lives even in the name of advancing science and medical treatment that might help others. There is sanctity and dignity of life no matter what the circumstances so it’s unethical for us to prey on their situation even if they’re willing to undergo experimental research.

Also, there’s a big difference between donating your body to science/medicine AFTER your dead and volunteering while you’re alive even though you believe you only have months to live. No one knows the time of their death and to speed up your death would be akin to committing suicide. That’s the sin of pride; that you want to determine something that is not your’s to decide then to dictate how you are going to die. Only God knows when and how and He may have other plans like a miracle or your inspiring others to do something holy.

Please pray on this matter and refer to your priest. God Bless you.

 

[Arizona_Fat_Gir]

someone close to death, whether by execution or terminal illness should be left in peace. This is the time they need to pray and make their final sacraments, if they are indeed going to die. They will need to work on their spiritual life at that time.

I remember reading a book about baby boomers. This was hypothetical, kind of makes you think if it could really ever happen. The name of the book was “Boom!” A young upstart suggests that people who are older could get more benefits if they would sign a suicide pact when they reach 75. She was trying to make brownie points in politics, and since this fictitious character was 29, it didn’t bother her to think of this possibility. Some people would probably like the idea of using older people, or those who are on death row, or terminal, for guinea pigs.

 

[St_Francis]

Do you know that you can start a thread without a poll?

Anyway, it sounds like the experiment has a good chance of killing the subject. If the subject is human, then a sin would be committed, no? It is not a sin to kill mice, because Gid gave us dominion over the world. We can use the things in it for our purposes as long as they are good and proportional. So it is ok to kill animals for meat, but it is not ok to pull the wings off flies.

So it is ok to kill animals for medical (or similar) research, but not ok to kill humans.

 

[graciew]

We do not even need to get into the ethical , nor know what the word means,one needs only a heart to answer.
My own father is now terminally ill . I would not allow anyone with such proposal get closer than ten miles from him.

 

[ethereality]

Do what?

You don’t want to kill mice without their consent, so you want terminally ill and people on death row to consent to you killing them?

Really? Kill the freaking mice, dude! :nope::whacky::dts:

Wow, that was a mischaracterization of almost everything I written.

Do you know that you can start a thread without a poll?

Why was the poll closed? Why are people here so sensitive about polls? On other web forums they’re free and fun, but here people treat them like they’re legislation and must be exclusively pertinent to the thread’s content. Is there some special thing about polls on this website that I don’t know about? Is there a problem with getting a feel for the demographic of the audience participating in a given thread?

 

[ethereality]

As Christians, we are told to care for the very poorest and neediest in society and those would include those in prison and those who face terminal illness. We should not endanger their lives even in the name of advancing science and medical treatment that might help others. There is sanctity and dignity of life no matter what the circumstances so it’s unethical for us to prey on their situation even if they’re willing to undergo experimental research.

How do you characterize working with a volunteer after first fully informing them of everything that will occur as ‘preying’ on them?

No one knows the time of their death and to speed up your death would be akin to committing suicide.

I did not elaborate on the details of any given experiment, but they need not accelerate death, and I do not think it is correct to say that hastening death is necessarily equivalent to suicide. That would seem to depend on both intent and action.

Please pray on this matter and refer to your priest. God Bless you.

God is not responding to my prayer in clear ways, and there is no priest I can contact for such leisurely discussion. The only priests in my area are excessively busy and have language barriers.

 

[ethereality]

Do you know that you can start a thread without a poll?

Is there a problem with freely including polls for fun?

Anyway, it sounds like the experiment has a good chance of killing the subject.

This is the second time someone has inferred imminent death. I am surprised. I suppose it is because I said the word ‘radiation’. Let me clarify: We have the ability to target radiation to specific areas, and the consequences could be things as simple as a small skin rash that goes away in weeks. Radiation does not mean death! The general public is excessively scared of radiation because of the atomic bombs Americans dropped. I hope this clarifies the matter.

If the subject is human, then a sin would be committed, no? It is not a sin to kill mice, because Gid gave us dominion over the world. We can use the things in it for our purposes as long as they are good and proportional. So it is ok to kill animals for meat, but it is not ok to pull the wings off flies.

So it is ok to kill animals for medical (or similar) research, but not ok to kill humans.

Here I am at a loss, because I specifically said, “harming mice without their consent,” and you are speaking as if killing an animal is the only thing that can be done to them, and as if animals people experiment on only have two states, “alive and healthy” and “dead”. There are many other possibilities: skin rash, minor pain, major pain, impaired function of an organ or body part.

I have explored the topic of animal experimentation in another thread, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not say it is acceptable to hurt animals for the benefit of medicine. They say simply that “reasonable” experiments can be done, and leave it to the reader to discern what is “reasonable”. It seems to me that performing an experimental surgery on someone’s sick pet is reasonable, whereas giving a healthy mouse skin damage is not.

I think the problem here comes because people think “experiment on animals” means hurting them, and that therefore because the Catechism says “reasonable experiment on animals” they think the Catechism is saying “a reasonable amount of hurting the animal”. That is not what the text says, and that is not what the word ‘experiment’ means. Does this clarify?

 

[St_Francis]

Is there a problem with freely including polls for fun?

Just checking

This is the second time someone has inferred imminent death. I am surprised. I suppose it is because I said the word ‘radiation’. Let me clarify: We have the ability to target radiation to specific areas, and the consequences could be things as simple as a small skin rash that goes away in weeks. Radiation does not mean death! The general public is excessively scared of radiation because of the atomic bombs Americans dropped. I hope this clarifies the matter.

I assumed you were talking about death (or serious harm) both because you mentioned radiation and because if the question itself. We do experiments on humans all the time as part of the testing for FDA approval. Since animal testing has been done first, it is assumed that the experiment is fairly safe by the time it gets to humans.

Here I am at a loss, because I specifically said, “harming mice without their consent,” and you are speaking as if killing an animal is the only thing that can be done to them,

Well, having assumed something for the humans, I had to assume the same for the mice, no?

If several people give you responses which indicate a lack of understanding, maybe tye problem lies not with the reader.

and as if animals people experiment on only have two states, “alive and healthy” and “dead”. There are many other possibilities: skin rash, minor pain, major pain, impaired function of an organ or body part.

I have explored the topic of animal experimentation in another thread, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not say it is acceptable to hurt animals for the benefit of medicine. They say simply that “reasonable” experiments can be done, and leave it to the reader to discern what is “reasonable”. It seems to me that performing an experimental surgery on someone’s sick pet is reasonable, whereas giving a healthy mouse skin damage is not.

This seems reasonable to *you, *but someone else might have a different opinion, no? And performing surgery on sick pets is not really steady enough to learn from.

I think the problem here comes because people think “experiment on animals” means hurting them, and that therefore because the Catechism says “reasonable experiment on animals” they think the Catechism is saying “a reasonable amount of hurting the animal”. That is not what the text says, and that is not what the word ‘experiment’ means. Does this clarify?

I am not sure it does clarify. For me, yes, one would need to treat the animals as well as possible. I also think there is a balance: what will the results of the experiment lead to? Testing mascara on rabbits is to me too frivolous, but if mice are given cancer to see if a substance causes cancer, couldn’t the same mice then be experimented on to see the efficacy of a cancer cure? Since I see cancer as something with justifies experimentation on animals.

And part of animal experiments seem to be just idle curiousity or downright stupidity. Seeing how long an animal can live while seriously injured? Causing pain even to an animal needs to be weighed against the actual benefit received.

 

[ethereality]

I’m still hoping for an answer to my questions. So far people have given their personal reactions to the proposed idea, but no one has explained why offering incentives for volunteers for hazardous experiments is wrong. (Again, of course there would be a full explanation so as to get informed consent.) I suppose the answer has to do with human dignity and impaired judgment: Somehow it hurts human dignity to volunteer for an experiment that will cause some degree of harm to one’s body? Somehow offering a reward will impair the volunteer’s judgment and consequently interfere with free consent?

These are the answers I have brainstormed, but I am not really sure how we can be sure offering a reward impairs judgment, or how human dignity is hurt by someone volunteering to suffer for science. You could just as well make the same argument about military service, that it harms human dignity to volunteer to get yourself hurt for the sake of others, e.g. jumping on a grenade to save others. But for military service, even if the military is being used by a corrupt nation to secure oil, we laud their self-sacrifice. Why is the same not true for scientific knowledge leading to cancer cures? And of course the military also offers incentives and rewards to procure volunteers (payment, career, retirement) – perhaps the military service analogy is more apropos than I thought. Perhaps military recruitment is just as immoral as recruiting would be for these experiments. The only difference is certainty of being harmed, but given the rate at which soldiers suffer from explosions, perhaps the difference in certainty is rather small.

 

[St_Francis]

I feel bemused by your saying it’s a hazardous experiment but then saying the “hazard” “may be as simple as a skin rash.”

For me, hazardous implies a heavy risk. Like when I see a sign on a fence surrounding one of those electrical places kids occasionally get killed on, it says HAZARD. It means one is running a risk of death or severe injury.

So our posts which assumed death could be a result kind of went along with that.

If the “hazard” is a slight skin rash, no problem. If the “hazard” is the risk of getting cancer or other serious illness, dying, or being severely injured, what you are suggesting is a problem!

 

[pianistclare]

It wrong because it violates human dignity.
What’s so hard to understand? People are not guinea pigs. The Nazi’s did that remember? I think the world population pretty agrees that it was wrong. And they were prisoners, no?
Many people have been victimized by people who thought they could experiment on them.
It’s wrong. I can’t fathom anyone would think fro a second that it would be a worthwhile endeavor. Society never benefits from violence done against someone. Experimentation on a living person is violence. People balk at testing cosmetics on animals.
But we have little respect for each other.

 

[ethereality]

The Nazi’s did that remember? I think the world population pretty agrees that it was wrong. And they were prisoners, no?

This makes me think you have not read anything in this thread, or else you simply don’t know what the Nazis did.

The Nazis did not obtain informed consent, did not give a choice, did not request volunteers, did not treat them as people, did not give them compensation, etc. Really, your argument is like saying oranges and apples are the same because they’re both fruit and both sold at supermarkets. Yeah, both scenarios involve experiments, but they’re otherwise completely different.

 

[ethereality]

I feel bemused by your saying it’s a hazardous experiment but then saying the “hazard” “may be as simple as a skin rash.”

For me, hazardous implies a heavy risk. Like when I see a sign on a fence surrounding one of those electrical places kids occasionally get killed on, it says HAZARD. It means one is running a risk of death or severe injury.

Well, I am positing a range of possible experiments. Sticking your arm in front of a beam for a minor skin rash could be one of them.

One of them truly would be hazardous as you suggest, because we don’t know the outcome, and yes, the risk is such that I think it could only be ethical on someone terminally ill (or, as I said, on death row) who wanted to volunteer to help society: Irradiating various small pieces of brain tissue (the brain has many different structures) to see what dose would cause, say, irregularity under a functional MRI or PET scan. It seems possible to me such harm could even be asymptomatic, or it could be crippling – obviously a brain expert would need to be consulted.

So yeah, possibilities range from skin irritation to brain damage. Even if someone were terminally ill, you think it would be immoral to allow them to volunteer for such? Why?

The argument I see explaining it is that our bodies must not be objectified, even voluntarily. Hence even if the person freely volunteers, is informed in advance and compensated afterward, human dignity would still be harmed by treating the person’s body as an object.

But it seems then to imply the conclusion that certain information we are forbidden to collect except in the event of an accident or tragedy. The routine method is to hurt animals to collect it, which I have not been able to justify morally. (By the way, I did contact the National Catholic Bioethics Center concerning such hurting of mice, and they didn’t do much more than recapitulate the nebulous answer in the Catechism – see the thread I made.)

But there again, the counter argument could be made that such a situation need not objectify the person. If the body is a manifestation of the person, then the person is letting himself be hurt, possibly even in imitation of our Lord who gave Himself up even unto death for our benefit. If terminally ill, such a voluntary donation of one’s being could then even take on profound meaning in light of the Resurrection which we await at the end of time: “You can hurt me now, with this fallen and frail body, but I will be back with one better.” So volunteering for such an experiment could even be an act of faith regarding that which God has promised those who love Him. (Of course I am assuming the intention is not suicide, and the terminally-ill volunteer does not have dependents whom he would hurt by hastening death.)

 

[St_Francis]

Well, I think the problem is in the intentionality of the act. The experimenter would be sinning by committing an act harmful to an innocent human being. There’s no justification for that as there would be for, say, someone who is attacking the experimenter.

So one cannot perform this type of experiment on a human being. Only after the parameters have established to the best of our knowledge as non-harmful can an experiment be carried out.

It is Catholic teaching that we have dominion or stewardship over the earth. We have that because the earth was created for us, for our benefit. Some really out-there environmentalists seem to think that we are a scourge on the earth because we are messing it up for the animals and plants–some even go so far as to imagine a world without humans! But this is thinking backwards, since there is no sense in God’s creating the world if we won’t be there.

So it is all right to experiment on animals. What would not be ok would be to experiment with no helpful goal, or to hurt animals for some sort of sick thrill. The animals should be cared for as well as possible.

Not everything is about consent, either, Just because two people consent doesn’t make it right to engage in sex outside of marriage, does it? The reason some things are wrong is not the effect on the one on whom the act is committed but because the person committing the act is committing a sin.

 

[graciew]

There is no less Iife in terminally ill person than in any of us.
Jesus struggled to live on the Cross,to breathe…
Was He any less Jesus in those last minutes where those Hands that had healed and those Feet that had walked for us were nailed?