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Ethical Human Experimentation

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Ethical Human Experimentation
Human Experimentation: Okay or Not?

My name is Abi Rodriguez, I am on the affirmative side, and I believe that human experimentation is okay. The claim I have made can be misunderstood for a statement like unethical experimentation is perfectly fine, however I do not believe that. I believe that as long as the experimentation is fine as long as it follows the Nuremberg code and is ethical. There are many reasons on why I support ethical human experimentation, for example it has saved thousands of lives from diseases such as polio and that it is better to test on human beings rather than animals since most animals are not the same as humans in many ways. The following paragraphs will go further into explanation on why ethical human experimentation
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Sure, animal experimentation is cheaper and are reliable for study, but they are also undergoing pain and suffering. Unlike humans, animals undergo multiple harsh and thorough experiments that have a high chance of killing the animal and most do end up dying. Animals are also very difficult to work with because they do not have the ability to communicate like humans can, so any mistakes or pain during the experiment cannot be explained to the caretaker, so more often than not an experienced caretaker is needed. Another reason on why animal experimentation is not as good as human experimentation is because something may be in the animal's genetics that had caused somethings to fail or succeed. For the most part, animal and human physiology are very similar, however there are some major differences that animals have like how animals have the inability to show symptoms like humans can, or how animals have higher metabolic activities which makes them able to take high doses of things than humans do. If we used humans on the other hand, we could get human specific results and make safer …show more content…
Based on prior research (such as animal models)
Avoidance of physical or physcological injury or harm
Benefits outweigh risks
Proper experience of researcher
Right to withdraw consent
Research must end if harm is resulting

This code is especially important to the law of the United States of America. Though the opposition may claim that there were still people breaking the rules and causing trauma to innocent human beings, the U.S.and other countries have become more serious than ever with the Nuremberg code, so far as to charging a man in Nigeria $75 million dollars for using children as test subjects for a meningitis drug called Trovan. If there was any testing experiment that did not follow any of the points in the Nuremberg code, it may have happened before the Nuremberg code was created and thus should not be used as a modern example of experiments gone wrong.

In conclusion, ethical human experimentation is okay as long as it follows the Nuremberg code. Animal experimentation should not be used as it is considered torture to the animals and you would not get exact results for humans than you would with animals.

Works Cited

“1953: Salk Announces Polio Vaccine”. History.com. 2016. September 28, 2016

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