How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #10
Research on inmates would come under scrutiny and start being heavily regulated about fifteen years later, because they'd be considered a vulnerable population unable to give informed consent. But at the time, prisoners nationwide were being used for research of all kinds—from testing chemical warfare agents to determining how X-raying testicles affected sperm count. (129)
This was a particularly thorny ethical dilemma, since prisoners don't elicit much sympathy from the general population. Like other marginalized populations (i.e. the poor and minorities), prisoners really needed protection from the scientific community, since a more "natural" code of ethics wasn't enough. Prisoners also had the added disadvantage of being unable to refuse participation in potentially harmful experiments.
Quote #11
The plan was that Mandel would have doctors on his staff inject twenty-two JCDH patients with cancer cells for Southam. But when he instructed his staff to give the injections without telling patients they contained cancer cells, three young Jewish doctors refused, saying they wouldn't conduct research on patients without their consent. (130)
If there's a silver lining to this story, it's this: some professionals in the medical and scientific community tried their best to protect patient rights, even when the law didn't. In this case, the doctors' refusals didn't save the patients from injection (there's always someone with flexible moral standards), but they were able to be part of the impetus for change. These three doctors were consider to be "overly sensitive" about the research because they were Jewish. Huh? How about "enlightened?"
Quote #12
"If the whole profession is doing it, how can you call it 'unprofessional conduct'?" (134)
It's a wicked hard question, and one asked by doctors who supported Chester Southam's uninformed consent approach to cancer research. The "everyone else is doing it" defense seemed to be enough for the medical community, but the NIH came to another conclusion: sometimes educated doctors don't have the common sense to notice when they're trampling on patients' human rights.