EXPERIMENTATION ON HUMAN SUBJECT

                                                                                                                        TOLU' ELUSIYAN

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the history of human existence, the experimentation on human subject has been both meritorious and de-meritorious, but there seems to be no balance, because research with human subjects is littered with a history of scandal that often shapes people’s view of the ethics of research. Conversely, there are even examples of government run research that took advantage of the helplessness of the subjects to ensure their participation and which resulted in the subjects experiencing unembellished harms. However, our concern in this discourse is the examination of the experimentation on human subject but with a critical evaluation to awake rational minds from their slumber and this shall be run open under the following thematic outline:

A.    What is Experimentation?

B.     The Human Life and Dignity

C.     The Experimentation on Human Subjects

i. The image problem

ii. Stem cells: Technology and Ethics

Iii. Human Cloning

     D. Evaluation/Conclusion

1.2 WHAT IS EXPERIMENTATION      

What is experimentation? What do we mean when we say experimentation; it is an operation or procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an unknown effect or law, to test or establish a hypothesis, or to illustrate a known law. An experimentation or experiment is also a process carried out to support, refute or validate a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause and effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies.

Furthermore, a child may carry out basic experiments to understand gravity, while teams of scientists may take years of systematic investigation to advance their understanding of a phenomenon. Experiments and other types of hands on activities are very important to student learning in the science classroom. Experiments can raise test scores and help a student become more engaged and interested in the material they are learning, especially when used over time.[1]

In the scientific method, an experiment is an empirical procedure that arbitrates between competing models or hypothesis[2]. Researchers also use experimentation to test existing theories or new hypothesis to support or disprove them[3]. An experiment usually tests a hypothesis, which is an expectation about how a particular process or phenomenon works. However, an experiment may also aim to answer a “what if” question, without a specific expectation about what the experiment reveals, or to confirm prior results. If an experiment is carefully conducted, the results usually either support or disprove the hypothesis.

1.3 THE HUMAN LIFE AND DIGNITY

For the Holy mother Catholic Church, there is no distinction between defending human life and promoting the dignity of the human person. The holy father Pope benedict xvi writes in caritas in veritate no.15 that “the church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized”.

As a gift from God, every human life is sacred from conception to natural death. The life and dignity of every person must be respected and protected at every stage and in every condition. The right to life is the first and most fundamental principle of human rights that leads catholics to actively work for a world of greater respect for human life and greater commitment to justice and peace. Having discussed the dignity of human life we shall now discuss the experimentation of human subjects which is the heart of this work with basic and historic examples to help us integrate and internalize the discourse in question.

1.4 EXPERIMENTATION ON HUMAN SUBJECT

THE IMAGE PROBLEM

Human subjects are body used in the process of experimentation, and yet, despite the litany of failures to maintain ethical standards in research, these remain the exceptions and a focus on scandals can seriously distort proper discussion about research ethics. Research involving human subjects is not intrinsically ethically dubious as some would say. That is not to say it does not contain ethical challenges, but these concerns can often be met. Nor does it diminish the immense social importance of human subjects in experiments and the huge improvement in the quality of lives and number of lives saved through such research. The most pressing question in research ethics is often not whether we should be doing research but how can we balance or justify exposing individual human subjects to risk for the sake of the advancement of science? Sometimes, in the case of therapeutic trials, research subjects potentially stand to benefit should the treatment prove successful.[4] However, such cases are rare when considered against the time it takes for the results the time it takes for the results of research to be fully developed. The benefits are therefore often distributed among future populations rather than the individuals taking part in the trial. Matters are made even more complicated in cases where trials are conducted on subjects who are potentially vulnerable or desperate.

STEM CELLS: TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

Stem cells are non-specialized cells that have the capacity to divide indefinitely in culture and to differentiate into more mature cells with more specialized functions. That means that stell cells are the origin of other cells in the human body. They are the core cells from which other cells are derived. They are the bearers and givers of being to the cells of the human species. To reach them is to reach the innermost deposit of what makes the human being what he or she is, at least from the biological point of view[5]

While nobody has been as of yet cured of any disease arising from the search on embryonic stem cells, there are true cures coming from adult and umbilical cord stem cells. Indeed, literally tens of thousands of people have already been cured of various ailments and treated for various disorders with adult stem cells. Numerous cures are indeed already happening with the non-morally objectionable sources of stem cells.[6] There are however, major problems to be overcome. One area of such problems is the use of adult stem cells for more expensive treatments and cures. The reasons are obvious. Adult stem cells are older, more vulnerable and less susceptible to use and further development. They are also limited in availability and can be applied to less people in comparison to need. Where they are available they are in less and minute qualities. They are also often weaker being older and having been more intensively used that the new ones from children or embryos. And this makes adult stem cells more difficult toisolate and purify, compared to embryonic stem cells, they have less potentials for flexible utilization and effectiveness.[7] Above all they contain more DNA abnormalities. This is because of the toxins, sunlight and errors in them that make them more difficult to multiply and deploy. These potential weaknesses make adult stem cells highly limited in usefulness and efficiency.

More positive however, is the embryonic stem cell.in this case, pluripotent stem cells are isolated from human embryos that are just a few days old. At this stage, they are highly fecund and can thus be used for various purposes and for numerous treatments and transfers. The brand new stem cell is a mine of medical progress and further development. They can be made pluripotent that is, endlessly multiplying in the laboratory for all intent use. Many medical experts do derive these cells from foetal tissue obtained from terminated pregnancies. Such harvested cases are then put to use in therapy, maintenance, growth or other treatment of illnesses. In another reprise, p.dixon reports: a study has shown that bone marrow stem cells from an adult human form healthy brain tissue. That means that the use of such marrow stem cells can bring about very important tissues like that of the human brain which are fundamental in constituting a human person. The reason for this wonder is not to be over wondered[8]. This should not surprise us Dixon maintains. It is because all adult stem cells contain all the genetic code needed to produce an entire clone, that is reproduction or repetition of the same human being. In principle therefore these stem cells are able to produce whatever tissues or organs that the human being needs to become a human being.

HUMAN CLONING

The cloning debate involves scientists, legislators, philosophers, and international organizations, but not always harmoniously. general agreement, if not absolute unanimity, evolved that human reproductive cloning, for the purposes of producing a human genetic copy baby is unethical. Wilmut himself explained to the united states congress that cloning animal involved a high failure rate, since of his 227 reconstructed embryos, only 29 were implanted in ewes and only one developed successfully. Similar experiments with humans would be totally unacceptable, wilmut concluded[9]. The high failure rates more than 90 percent and high morbidity of animal cloning strongly suggests its inapplicability to humans. Furthermore, cloned animals seem to suffer high deformity and disability rates.[10] Dolly herself was finally put down in 2003, at the age of just six and a half years, even though many sheep live more than 10years. She had developed a progressive lung disease, which is usually found in older sheep, as well as premature arthritis. Some cloning experts have consequently hypothesized that cloned humans might need hip replacement surgery while still adolescents and might suffer from senility by the age of 20.

EVALUATION/CONCLUSION

By way of evaluation and conclusion on the account of this discourse, experimentation on human subjects taking stem cells technology and human cloning as a case study: Human beings are more than stem cells. We need to research into cells, but at the same time we need to go higher and look at the being, values and ultimate destiny of the human person. The above proviso must colour the objectives of stem cell researchers.[11] They must see us first and foremost as persons. Then their desire and function to help us will have more authenticity and achieve better fruit. While developments in stem cell research is ongoing, while the human genome mapping has been completed and more hopes are being raised as to the benefits to come from this feat, we must nevertheless equally see that no human being is made a victim of the others. This is a clarion call to respect lives, all lives, including the life of the human embryo. Life may never be willfully destroyed in the name of research. Life is life, and all life is equal. This is a fundamental ethical imperative.it is the bottom line of all our study, research and preoccupation with science and art, with medicine. This brings us to consider the last segment of the new regenerative medicine: the medical wonder of cloning.

Conversely, the ethical ramifications of cloning, especially with regard to humans, seem to defy easy limitation. Even if cloning technique problems are resolved with time, many questions remain. On what grounds could reproducing children by cloning be allowed or prohibited? Should cloning be used for sterile couples or for homosexual couples who want biological offspring? How would a child born by asexual reproduction experience life, as a unique individual or as a genetic ‘prisoner’? Is a cloned child simply a twin of its genetic donor, with a certain time lag? Should parents choose the traits of a future child, as is possible with cloning? Those and other such issues now preoccupy scientists and bioethicists who see in cloning procedures the potential to endanger human identity[12]. Consequently, after several considerations, several countries have formulated opinions and regulations on human reproductive cloning. In France, the national consultative ethics committee for health and life sciences addressed central dilemmas when in 1997 it rejected human reproductive cloning. The notion that perfect genetic similarity would in itself lead to perfect psychic similarity is devoid of any scientific foundation, stated the committee, adding that human reproductive cloning would cause a fundamental upheaval of the relationship between genetic identity and personal identity in its biological and cultural dimensions. And finally the life and dignity of man must always be respected.

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[1] Stohr Hunt Patricia, An Analysis of Frequency of Hands on Experience and science achievement, Journal of research in science,pdf

[2] Griffith W. Thomas, The physics of everyday phenomena: a conceptual introduction to physics (third edition) Boston: Mcgraw hill, pp.3-4,pdf

[3] Wilczek Frank, Fantastic Realities: 49 mind journeys and a trip to Stockholm, New Jersey: world scientific.pp 61-62,pdf

[4] Some have argued that this should go even further with the recruitment of the terminally ill for experimental drugs.

[5] Pantaleon Iroegbu Stem cells: Technology and Ethics, lecture note, Dr. Philip Edema, Saints peter and paul major seminary, Bodija, ibadan p.623

[6] ibid

[7] Ibid p.624

[8] ibid

[9] Human cloning: Lecture note, a photocopied material, published by united nation edicational scientific and cultural organization: preface written by Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of UNESCO,P.11

[10] IBID

[11] Pantaleon iroegbu stem cells: Technology and ethics, op.cit p.633

[12] Human cloing, op.cit,p. 11-12