Human experimentation Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Human experimentation - Term Paper Example The actual collective and bottom-line benefit to society would be difficult to quantify. According to Goski (2011), â€Å"science-based medicine depends upon human experimentation†¦without human testing, they will never know if the end results of all that elegant science will actually do what it is intended to do and to make real human patients better. They will never know if the fruits of all that labor will actually cure disease. However, it is in human experimentation where the ethics of science most tend to clash with the mechanisms of science† (Goski, 2011, par. 1). Theoretically, scholars would have wanted to assert that human experimentation can be justified when greater good of society is at stake. This is actually the reason why several guidelines have been earmarked to establish rules that aim to adhere to ethical, moral, and legal standards with regards to using humans in experimentation (Kalechofsky, n.d.). The work of Ivy (1948), later known as the Nuremurg Code, explicitly stipuated guidelines in terms of observing quality of experiments, as well as the people conducting the experiments; and needed safeguards: Safeguards: (5) No experiment should risk death or disabling injury, "except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects;" (6) risk should never exceed the importance of the problem to be solved; (9, 10) experiment should be designed to be stopped at any point by: a) scientists if continuation is judged "liable to result in bringing disability or death to experimental subject; or b) by the human subject† (Ivy, 1948, pp. 1-5; cited in Kalechofsky, n.d.). From these guidelines, it could be deduced that the emphasis on the goal or outcome supposedly serving a utilitarian precept was most evident. In contemporary times, the need for informed consent has been stressed; but the controversial nature of potential