Medical Experiments Flashcards
why are medical experiments important?
health research
- improves understanding of disease
- informs practice
- knowledge and health are public goods
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
- studied course of syphilis in 400 African-American men
- theorized that the effects of syphilis depended on race (blacks were less severely affected than whites, cardiovascular in blacks/central nervous system in whites)
- 399 syphilis, 201 were controls
- extreme poverty and lack of health care
- racial subordination, trusted Nurse Rivers, free treatments/transportation/food, provisions for/after death
Nurse Eunice Rivers
- are of the long-term players in the study
- believed it was for the public good
- needed the money/professional status
Tuskegee and World War II
250 subjects registered for the draft
-diagnosed by military but had “not to treat” letters in their files
there had been major advances in treatment by 1947
-couple doses of penicillin
-US government opened “rapid treatment centres”
-researchers prevented Tuskegee participants from getting treatment
End of the Tuskegee Study
- Jean Heller broke story in July 1972
- only 74 of the subjects were still alive
- federal agencies were told to investigate
- panel of US State Inquiry concluded that study was ethically unjustified
- found that participants participated freely (contentious bc of issue of informed consent)
- US Public Health Service defended the study
- longer study leads to better ultimate information
Nazi Experiments to Advance Nazi Ideology
- “prove” superiority of Aryan race
- measuring body
- wanted to determine cause of physical and mental “defects”
- wanted to refine the human race
Dr. Joseph Mengele
Chief physician of Auschwitz-Birkeneau 1943 aka “Angel of Death.” Would select people from trains, selected twins, dwarfs, unique physical specimen. Assigned to special barrack.
High Altitude Experiments
Dachau. Aimed to establish safe parachuting heights and to see how long people withstand loss of air pressure. Also had physicians from Air Force, German Experimental Institution of Aviation, civilians
Freeing/Hypothermia Experiments
Aimed to find out how long it takes to freeze to death and to find out how to resucitate frozen people. Tanks of ice water or outside in sub-zero temperatures. Sun lamps gave people 2nd/3rd degree burns; internal irrigation forced boiling water into stomach/bladder/intestines; body heat from women lying on men; hot bath that slowly increases in temperature (but they would have to be removed from bath at the right time or else they would die of shock).
Diseases Prevention and Treatment
Mostly focused on contagious diseases, developed and tested pharmaceuticals, testing immunization compounds and sera. Testing antidotes for phosgene and mustard gas.
Sea Water Experiment
Testing ways to make sea water drinkable. Some were dehydrated, some were given desalinated water, some were given processed seawater, some given straight sea water. Given spinal punctures or liver punctures. Those given sea water suffered hallucinations, diarrhea, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, madness, death
Bone-grafting and Nerve Experiments
Ravensbrueck (all women’s camp) aimed to regenerate bone, muscle, nerves, and transplantation of bones
Twin Experiments
“Mengele’s children.” Often given better treatment, clothes, hair, food, rest. Tattooed with ZW sequence. 200 of 1500 pairs survived, and many died within 5 years of end of the war. If one twin died, the other twin was killed.
Nuremberg
physicians trials began in October 25, 1946. Most important was the judgement of principles - foundation for contemporary moral, ethical, and legal concepts.
