Medical Experiments on Prisoners This paper wil

This experimentation dates back to the early 20th century:

Prisoners have been used for experiments in the United States since at least 1914, when white male convicts in Mississippi were used for pellagra experiments. Also, during World War II, prisoners trying to be patriotic signed up in droves for experiments, therefore beginning the large increase of prisoner participation and support in experimentation.

Pharmaceutical companies began to recruit groups within prisons to ensure a steady supply of participants. These prisoners are subjected to an onslaught of untested new drugs which are being primed for public use. One expert says, "For some time, international medical societies have attempted to prohibit the use of prisoners as subjects, but these efforts have been effectively frustrated by American medical experimenters." People have been questioning intentions because other countries are not using similar techniques.

People in favor of prisoner experimentation apply three principles in their argument. One principle is social good. Social good refers to the "utilitarian argu

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expert explains, "When the judgment of experimental justifiability is made independently of the special circumstances of possible subject pools, an improper reliance upon those special circumstances cannot be complained of." Those in favor point out that prisoners cannot be excluded from medical experimentation because other groups are not. On the other hand, opponents stress that experimentation must be stopped because the experiments proposed for prisoners would never be performed on free citizens. Some opponents of prisoner experimentation believe that, if prisoners cannot participate in experiments, society will benefit. Most supporters use social good as a basis for their argument. Opponents say that, if one group of people receives different treatment, society will be tarnished. After all, all people are equal: "Society is, or ought to be, comprised of individuals committed to respecting others as ends in themselves where each individual sees himself bound to a whole network of other individuals." These ethical principles can be the basis for many policies, such as continuing prisoner experimentation or stopping experimentation on prisoners. Between those two extremes are other policies. One is to "institutiona
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Approximate Word count = 2896
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)