The uncontrolled distribution of LSD to children at the Harvard Medical Center through Professors Alpert and Leary are all broad examples of how the neglect and mistreatment of the human population has deliberately killed us off and caused the arousal of unknown diseases and pathogens that seep into our body all due to a shot administered by our fellow doctors (Kansra, N. and Shih, W.C., 2012) ( Referred from http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/5/21/harvard-lsd-project-leary/ ). Human experimentation's dark history began when the line between treatment and experimentation was blurred. In the early 1960s, the public began to notice the ethical neglect for test subjects by their experimenters. Those charged with administering research funding, took not of the public furor generated by the exposure of gross abuses in medical research; doctors and scientist alike began to use the data and notes gather from the Nazi experiments before and after World War II, in order to conduct these unethical experiments. People who unknowingly and willingly volunteered to participate in these experiments, were placed into unkempt conditions and unsanitary environments. The promotional and uncontrolled distribution of thalidomide throughout America, labeled as an experimental drug; the administration of cancer cells to senile and debilitated patients at the Brooklyn Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital (Katz, 1972). As a result, the public was very sensitive to these experiments since the US government had imprinted the crimes committed by the Nazi doctors throughout the war into their minds. When the public became aware that their own government was capable of the same devious unethical experimentation, two fears arose; the frightening power of some political ideologies to demand that no private interest impede the accomplishment of the public good, and the acute fear that people must adapt to whatever science produces, and that science is ultimately beyond social control (Edgar 496). Therefore, the U.S. government changed their slogans to focus on how the Nuremburg trials taught us that there must be limits to government power. Admittedly, the most notorious of highly unethical human experiments outside of Nazi Germany and the Japan during World War II, is the infamous Tuskegee experiment. This study, conducted by our very own Public Health Service (PHS) was conducted between 1932 and 1972 and examined the natural progression of untreated syphilis in poor black men who received free health care from the government. In 1932, when this study was conceived it was not totally unethical. At the time, there were precious few treatments for syphilis, and none of them worked very well. Consequently, observing the progression of syphilis, using the treatments available at the time, and following the subjects prospectively constituted a reasonable trial design. (Orac, 2011) (Referred from eblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/14/revisiting-the-issue-of-ethics-in-human/) By 1947 was the standard of care for treating syphilis. When campaigns to eradicate syphilis came to the county in which most of the subjects, study researchers prevented their subjects from participating. In essence, even after an effective treatment for syphilis had become widely available, study still researchers denied it to their subjects. By the end of the study in 1972, of the original 399 men in the study, 28 had died of syphilis; 100 were dead of related complications; 40 wives had been infected with syphilis; and 19 children had been born with congenital syphilis. (Stobbe, 2011) (Referred from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41811750/ns/health-health_care/t/ugly-past-us-human-experiments-uncovered/) How can we trust a goverment, that uses the lives of it's own people to further their own selfish purposes? AP medical writer Michael Stobbe, published an article in 2011 that revisted America's notorius history with unethical experiments. Around the time he published his article, there was a meeting of a presidential bioethics committee, the Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, triggered by the revelations about the Guatemala syphilis study 65 years ago. Those revelations led the AP to do an exhaustive review of reports from medical journals and press clippings, and the AP found at least 40 studies similar to the Guatemala syphilis study in that patients were put at risk for serious disease or, even worse, healthy people were intentionally made ill to study disease. Some of these abuses are well known, others much less so. Stobbe goes on to call the list of experiments a “Holy Trinity”, due to the articles written between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Additionally, during the mid-1960s, (The third of the “Holy Trinity”) children there were intentionally infected with hepatitis in order to determine whether gamma globulin could cure it. Esstenially, the targeting of a vulnerable population was not the only problematic issue that arose with the experiment. The people assigned to investigate the incidents, rationalized infecting these children would cause the hepatitis virus to infect up to 70% of new residents of the school within a year (Orac, 2011) ( Referred from eblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/14/revisiting-the-issue-of-ethics-in-human/). Willowbrook at the time was very crowded, with long waiting lists for children to be admitted. At times, there was only room in the experimental wing. For parents who could not afford to take care of their children, this situation could bring considerable pressure to bear to “persuade” them to “do the right thing”; meaning that these parents were manipulated into allowing their child to become infected with the disease, inevitably killing them. Researchers commonly choose populations that are easy to exploit. They choose prisoners, children, mentally ill, or patients on their deathbeds. All of these populations give consent to experiments based on little knowledge or because they believe their life has no purpose. Researchers should be choosing populations that understand the meaning of consent and what it means to be involved in a particular experiment. There are many reasons why choosing prisoners, children, mentally ill, and patients on their deathbeds is unethical. Furthermore, over 100,000 experiments are conducted every year; privately funded by the government. They “claim” that there are so many, that they cannot keep records, notes, or datas from these experiments and their purposes on file. By recording this information, it can prevent deformities and birth defects in newborns and prevent the obscurity of falsified information when doctors give their patients unlicensed medicine. This raises the question: Why fund experiments, when you can't keep records of the notes and data for future reference on them? Is it so the public won't be anamoured and/or disgusted by the tyrant that supposedly protects them? Or is it because the experiments being conducted are being used to gain control over the American people by instilling the fear of unknown and mass hysteria upon them? Many times in medical experiments, researchers forget to take into consideration the well being and safety of their patients. They get so wrapped up in their experiment that they think of their patients as mere objects. Nelson and Rohricht admit, “Misuse comes when a subject is seen as an object of the investigator’s control, when the subject is a means to an end in which that person cannot have voluntary share but for which a heavy personal price might have to be paid” ;(71). In experiments, patients trust in their doctors and assume that their doctors will still pay close attention to their health. Even in procedures where the experiment is meant to improve the overall health of the patient there are no guarantees, it is still just an experiment. In conclusion, the mistreatment of human beings by means to gather data via medical experimentation that is harmful to their well-being, should be frown upon and outlawed. If it gives harm to the people, then why should it be practice or participated in. Doctors and the federal government were created to protect the general public from things that could potentially kill them; not the other way around.

Reference(s): http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/rothman/COL476I5027.pdf http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/14/revisiting-the-issue-of-ethics-in-human/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41811750/ns/health-health_care/t/ugly-past-us-human-experiments-uncovered/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/5/21/harvard-lsd-project-leary/