Experiments Without Informed Consent

From 1946 to 1948 the United States and Guatemalan officials infected soldiers, prostitutes, and mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases without informed consent. The researchers claimed that “The goal of the study seems to have been to determine the effect of penicillin in the prevention and treatment of venereal diseases.” Although, penicillin therapy was given to 76% of the subjects only about 26% of the therapy completions were fully documented. Francis Collins, the current Director of National Institutes of Health, said that these experiments are “a dark chapter in history of medicine.” Furthermore, this example is a reason why regulations such as informed consent and others should be enforced to limit some of the freedoms of the researchers, to …show more content…
For instance, field researchers don’t necessarily experiment on people, they speak to them and while that may seem harmless to most, to Institutional Review Boards they don’t. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are halting or limiting field researcher’s access to “find out about people’s lived experiences.” They are claiming that “These people have issues with their gender,” but in reality we all do. Laurie Essig explains, “...from a sociological perspective, we all have issues with our gender, even the most normatively gendered among us…” While putting certain limitations on researcher’s freedoms is necessary, there has to be some exceptions. Stopping researchers from engaging in informative discussions with “vulnerable populations” shouldn’t be one of them especially if the subject’s privacy is protected and the confidentiality of the data is maintained. Halting these factual discussions can prove to be counter effective and will only stop this fieldwork from providing any beneficial