3 ms·
Who has ever done that?
by occam 9y ago
Who has ever done that?
- schoen 9y agoAs mentioned elsewhere in this thread, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment is one of the most important parts of the history of IRBs.
- occam 9y agoTuskegee syphilis experiment, ok. However, as bad as that was, no one was injected with syphilis.
- schoen 9y agoI thought I remembered that the Public Health Service intentionally infected people in order to see what would happen, but Wikipedia seems to say that they intentionally withheld treatment from people who were already infected and deceived them about this, rather than causing the infections themselves (although some of the study subjects spread the disease to other people during the course of the study, which were new infections that could have been prevented by treatment).
- mjevans 9y agoI believe a modern design for this study would compare different kinds of treatment (but not the elimination of treatment... yikes).
- goialoq 9y agoModern policy for medical research is that everyone gets a best available known treatment, and some people also get an experimental unknown treatment.
- incompatible 9y agoThere must be cases where this isn't practical. E.g., if the normal treatment for greyscale is to cut off the arm before it spreads, how could you try any alternative treatment?
- YawningAngel 9y agoIt isn't, and the answer is "you can't get good data". A good example would be immunotherapy for cancers, which has to be tested alongside treatments with adverse impact on immune function
- travem 9y agoIsn't the net result similar anyway? 1. People who should have been treated weren't. 2. As a result of #1, more people would have been subsequently infected. Additionally: 3. Distrust in healthcare is engendered amongst a marginalized population, with potential to lead to further incidences of undiagnosed ailments. The net result is similar, more people are infected than would otherwise have been. Just because the infection mechanism is less obvious doesn't necessarily make it less bad.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]