Introduction to the Resources on Human Experimentation Pages

Audience and Purpose

These pages are primarily intended to furnish students in my English 101 classes at DeKalb College with resources for their essays on Human Experimentation. Others are welcome to use, comment on, and provide additional resources for these pages. I plan to maintain these pages for the general public and to update the links and content when possible. I also hope to provide a Usenet newsgroup for discussion of the issues involved.

Content

The bulk of these pages consists of links to other sites on human experimentation. Some pages contain original content or uniquely arranged excerpts from other sources. I hope to add more original contributions and documents not available elsewhere on the web. At the present time, however, the strength of these pages is in the accumulation of diverse resources available on the World-Wide Web.

By human experimentation, I mean scientific experiments in which humans are used as subjects, not commercial practices which harm humans (like the coverup of carcinogenic ingredients in cigarettes), and not accidental consequences of experiments for humans who are not subjects (for example, the numerous inadvertent victims of atomic testing). I've focused on those experiments in which humans were either the unwilling or unknowing subjects of experiments which the experimenters knew to be potentially or actually hazardous. I've also included discussions of the consequences of these experiments, as well as links to codes and regulations designed to eliminate such abuses in the future. I've tried to include all available sides; at the present, most information on the web attack, not defend, these experiments. Still, these reactions are quite diverse in their viewpoints and purposes. I haven't included any links to Holocaust denial sites; these pages can be accessed from Hatewatch (www.hatewatch.org) or with any comprehensive search engine.

How to Use These Resources

I recommend that those unfamiliar with the topic begin with a general introduction, like Bob Hale's Ethics chapter, written for his Introduction to Behavioral Science Research class. The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments - Final Report contains overviews and eighteen chapters with background on various U. S. human subject research from the 1920's to the present. My General Resources page provides links to other surveys of experiments (most of which are written more as exposes than as histories), as well as to general bioethics pages and to codes of conduct for researchers. My other pages categorize experiments on the basis of the group or individual conducting the research:
  1. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (the official title of the Tuskegee Experiment)
  2. Experiments performed by Nazi doctors on victims in concentration camps
  3. Experiments conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission on civilians and military personnel
  4. Experiments in which unwitting subjects were given LSD by the CIA or U. S. Army (a part of the project sometimes called MKULTRA)
  5. Experiments on children and pregnant women
  6. The Milgram experiment, which tested the willingness of subjects to participate in an experiment which seemed to harm other subjects
I've also provided a selective bibliography of print sources. In spite of the vast resources provided by the Office of Energy, most of the substantive information available on human experimentation is available only in books and journal articles. I hope that the links on my web pages will lead the reader to investigate the issues further by consulting the non-electronic media as well.

Disclaimer

The following sites provide information on the use of human beings as experimental subjects. Some of the material comes from official publications and documents; other information comes from individual commentary and opinion on the subject. Inclusion of these sites does not constitute an endorsement of their validity or viewpoints.

Dr. Steven Hale, Humanities Division, DeKalb College.

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