Prisoner Testing Research Paper

Prisoner Testing The years 1965 & 1966, Dr. Albert Kligman gave 75 prisoners a dosage of dioxin, a chemical used in Agent Orange, 468 times greater than protocol. Agent orange was an herbicide used by the US during the Vietnam War to clear its dense vegetation. Those who came in contact with this herbicide had horrible side effects such as birth defects, cysts, swollen body parts & etc. According to Keramet Reiter, a UC Irvine graduate in the department of criminology, the prisoners faced such consequences as those who were affected by the war and also had additional scars, blisters, & continuos rashes. These 75 prisoners were not the only humans taken advantage of during an experiment, but also there have been cases where non-prisoners were abused of which is why I stand on the negation of the bill,” The United States federal government should legalize medical and pharmaceutical testing on prisoners that have committed murder. This includes prisoners in public, federal, or state prisons and private prisons.” Although there are regulations meant to prevent the exploitation of prisoners, it is not guaranteed. According to the
Common Rule, a set of rules created by the leaders of human subject rights the Department of Health & Human services, only 17 federal agencies have registered to follow these rules. In total, there are about 430 federal agencies,as stated in Competitive Enterprise Institute, so only 4% of those agencies are obligated to follow the Common Rule. The other 96% of federal agencies, if they choose to experiment on prisoners, do not have to follow these regulations. There also is the Nuremberg code, a code created after WW2 because of the Nazi Doctor’s atrocities committed on the Jew prisoners. However, this code is not mandatory. It is not universally accepted within any nation’s law according to Massechusetts Medical Society. The rules written in the Nuremberg code are simply seen as guidelines rather than what must be followed. Therefore, prisoners are quite vulnerable in experimentation since these regulations are not enforced upon. Since the experiments on prisoners are not guaranteed to be as told. It is quite vague whether or not it will be breaking the eighth amendment which states there shall be no cruel or unusual punishment placed on any human being. Yes, prisoners have limited rights, but they still have the right to the first & eighth amendments. For example, malaria was affecting the US soldiers during WW2 which is why researchers began to study abroad malaria. According to US National Library of Medicine, these researchers ended up practicing on prisoners purposely infecting them without knowing a cure causing many to die. This is an example of how prisoners are a population bound to be exploited and viewed as a different species. Yes, although this occurred in the past, it is not granted it would not occur once again.
In the common rule subpart C, it states a prisoner must be treated as a nonprisoner if used in any expirement.
Tuskegee experiment 1923, 600 non-prisoners were taken into an experiment with false information. They believed they had ‘bad blood’ which is a word that meant for many illnesses. Out of the 600, 399 were infected with syphilis and 324 of these infected died from being malnourished and not being treated properly. The original experiment was meant to last 6 years, but this expanded into 40 years, ending in the 1970s. In between the 40 years, penicillin was proven to be a treatment for syphilis & the regulations were made. Yet this experiment continued with these 600 men who were falsely informed of what they had. These non-prisoner were aleady msitreated making the possibilities of an actual prisoner being maltreated very
high.
Also, there are already 19 million American citizens who have voluntarily enter these pharmaceutical & medical experiments according to Dr. Shamoo a profesor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. There are only 175,000 murderers in state or private prisons. Since the US already has 19 million volunteers why should they also use murderers? In addition there has been many successes with using animal testing. For example,according to Foundation of Biomedical Research, dogs were used to create insulin, a treatment for diabetes. Another example, cows were used to create a vaccine for small pox. There is much success through animal testing and already we have 19 million volunteers. Using prisoners who committed murder will be a waste of time. Prisoners who have committed may have done wrong, but overall they are humans just as we are also. Being kept in a cell involuntarily is their doing, not becoming a test subject and risking their lives. Even if prisoners were to give their consent, it is not 100% guaranteed they will be protected by the law for not all agencies follow the common rule violating the eight amendment.Prisoners who committed murder are still like any citizen.