Earth Operations Central: Human Experimentation

Copyright (c) © (copr) 1997 all rights reserved by TJH Internet SP and Earth Operations Central. All comments are strictly my unsupported opinion unless based upon promotional blurb extracted from the websites linked herein. This is by no means an exhaustive nor definitive list, and no particular recommendation nor assurance of solvency or utility is to be inferred from a listing herein.

Human Experimentation Human experimentation is a subject which calls too-rapidly to mind the horrors and atrocities of Axis scientists during the Second World War.

That can't happen here, you say, this is, after all, North America. But it seems that it can. I will spare you pointers to assorted people alleging that they themselves have been the subject of human experimentation, you can find those links on the Love, Espionage & Weird Federal Dope Page.

The point of this page is to enlighten you to the exact degree that it is legally-permissible to engage in experimentation upon human subjects without their informed consent. In the United States of America, there is a huge degree of latitude. Informed consent is simply, at present, not required. While you could, for instance, file assault charges on some mad doctor for shooting you full of bizarre chemicals of unknown effect, there is simply no law on record which specifically details whether or not he is required to tell you what those chemicals were - nor have you any recourse to legal remedy for having been subjected to unknown chemicals in the absence of your informed consent. You can be experimented upon by your doctor, by someone else's doctor, in fact, you can be experimented upon by any person at any time and in any manner they can get away with. I'd love to give a stirring speech about how you must know your rights, but at present, you don't have any.

Regulation and Regulatory Affairs and Concerns

Department of Energy Human Subjects Database. Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University.
National Bioethics Advisory Committee Homepage.
Protection of Human Subjects: Informed Consent a Food & Drug Administration Paper. A more readable HTMLized version is here (provided of course that Earth Operations Central's District Office is up and serving, generally from 1300 to 100 hours ZULU.
Senator John Glenn's introductory comments on S.193 which would for the first time begin to apply the rule of law to experimentation on unknowing subjects in this country.

BioEthics

Ethical, Legal & Social Issues in Science - from Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory.

Scary Current Research

Panic Attack Research One.
Panic Attack Research Two.
Panic Attack Research Three. Read closely and you can see a potential for a chemical reign of terror. Be very very afraid - if you're not, application of some of these chemicals will make sure you are very, very afraid.

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