Testing+on+Prisoners+-+olivia

__Clinical Trials on Prisoners:__
The use of prisoners for clinical trials was never a rejected idea or suggestion in the 1960’s, according to Dr. Paulsen. However, by the 1970’s, the idea of using prisoners for clinical was highly rejected, due to the ample amount of civil rights movements taking place, including the prisoners’ rights movement (“Chapter 9: History of Prison Research Regulation”). Up until that point “about 90 percent of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, federal officials say” (Urbina). In 1973, journalist Jessica Mitford famously explained why prisoners were such popular test subjects, by stating that they’re “cheaper than chimpanzee’s”. Not only were they cheaper, but they had less government protection than chimpanzee’s, dogs, and even hamsters (“Should prisoners participate in medical research trials?”). The ethics of testing on prison inmates is still a hot topic.

Some argue that because of the quadrupling of the prison population in the past 30 years (to about 2.3 million), and the excessive amount of H.I.V. and Hepatitis C that exists within the prison system, testing on prisoners could be essentially helpful in curing and preventing these diseases, if done properly (Urbina).

However, in some cases, clinical/pharmaceutical trials go wrong, or the patients are not fully informed on the procedure that they are undergoing, that may leave lasting, damaging effects (Urbina). In other cases, many prisoners are not fully competent, or intelligent enough to comprehend what they are signing off their permission for. Having clinical trials on prisoners may be inexpensive, but it also opens gateways for malpractice, or exploitation.

The current regulations on testing on prisoners has not been changed since 1978, but recently (2007) a panel of medical advisers from the Institute of Medicine has recommended that the government loosen restrictions on pharmaceutical testing on prisoners. The current regulations state that testing is aloud if it has "minimal risks". These new regulations do not just include those who are incarcerated, but also those on parole and probation, increasing the number of "prisoners" from 2 million, to 7 million potential test subjects (Wiegand). Testing on prisoners is a uniquely American practice, that ended in most countries after the Nurembourg code. Although the IOM has proposed making such changes to make testing on prisoners easier, these changes still have a long time coming (Wiegand).



^ Edward Anthony endured a pharmaceutical test in 1964, and the swelling in his hands never went down.

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A solution that is becoming more apparent to avoid cases such as Anthony's is the use of volunteers, because surprisingly enough, there is a surplus of volunteers to participate in pharmaceutical trials.=====

"Students and poor people proved to be especially viable alternative populations from which to draw participants for nontherapeutic experiments--if the cash rewards were sufficient. The growing controversy surrounding the use of prisoners as research subjects, combined with the realization that they could find enough alternate subjects for their needs, led drug companies to make decisions that were based not so much on ethics as expediency” (“Chapter 9: History of Prison Research Regulation”).

-oliviaaaaa mitchem.

__LINKS:__ [] [] [] [] http://jmt.pennpress.org/strands/jmt/pdfHandler.pdf;jsessionid=9A9B2154E774D415A020B4A2EC250AAD?issue=20070301&file=20070301_037_039.pdf