Human Experimentation and Human Rights*

The readiness with which clinical research continues to be viewed as an extension of clinical practice, both similarly grounded in the millennia-long Hippocratic commitment to the welfare of the individual patient, overlooks the transformation of medical practice since the age of medical science.

Abstract

This chapter intends to stimulate discussion on the need to provide greater protection to patient-subjects' rights to self-determination and bodily integrity whenever they are used as means for the ends of human progress. It argues that respect for individual autonomy and for self-determination, which informed consent is intended to safeguard, will remain hollow aspirations until the nature and quality of the conversations between physician-investigators and patient-subjects about participation in research are radically transformed. The chapter highlights the wide chasm that separates contemporary rhetoric from practices in implementing human subjects' rights to make their own decisions about serving as means for others' ends. It also argues that respect for individual autonomy and for self-determination, which informed consent is intended to safeguard, will remain hollow aspirations until the nature and quality of the conversations between physician-investigators and patient-subjects about participation in research are radically transformed.