The 1976 National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Behavioral and Biomedical Research:
i. As noted in early sections, the 1960s and 1970s biomedical research was defined by non-therapeutic experimentations on vulnerable populations, like prisoners. However, in the 1970s there was a shift in the social norms guiding experimentation in prisons from acceptance to condemnation. Allen Hornblum comments, “After a quarter century of unrestrained use of prison inmates as cheap and available raw material for medical experimentation, the once widely accepted practice had come to an end. Victims of scientific and social forces, prisoners were still shunned, but they were no longer seen as the human equivalent of laboratory guinea pigs” (Hornblum, "They Were Cheap and Available" 1440).
ii. Resulting from these medical abuses, the commission’s recommendations in its final report, released in 1978, were more restrictive than reformative. One medical scholar remarked, “The result of these regulations has been, as was their goal, the virtual elimination of biomedical research activity in prisons and jails” (Gostin, Vanchieri, and Pope 114). iii. In establishing its regulations, the commission focused on two ethical dilemmas they believed were inherent in research involving prisoners: the principle of justice in relation to the benefits gained and the risks suffered and the principle of autonomy in relation to voluntary, informed consent. The commission ended up taking the perspective that in order to respect an individual’s integrity, we must protect them from exploitation and potential disproportionate harms of the research. This reasoning stemmed from the coercive environment they believed prisons produced and the vulnerability of prisoners within. The commission stated, “should coercion be lessened and more equitable systems for sharing of burdens and benefits be devised, respect for persons and concern for justice would suffers that prisoners not be deprived of the opportunity to participate in research” (Gostin, Vanchieri, and Pope 114). This perspective led to the varied federal regulations passed over the years that solely permit therapeutic research with minimal risk. |