Quote:
Originally Posted by valo403
So what happens when we think we've discovered a wonder drug, let's say a cure for cancer, but we need to do trials on a couple thousand people to make sure it won't have drastic side affects. And let's say this happens fairly often, seeing as the success rate for pharmaceuticals is pretty low. Do we expand that to people convicted of lesser crimes? I mean they're morally culpable to right? Do we assign a lower status to certain social groups as well?
Do you even grasp the magnitude of what you are proposing? What an absolute ridiculous display of naivete.
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We currently have programs where someone can participate in drug trials in return for money. Why not expand this so that convicts can participate in exchange for reduced sentence time? And if any drug shows actual promise at, say, curing cancer, there will be no shortage of individuals signing up to participate. Trials are simply not a problem. It's the actual drug development, where a) unsuccessful tests are often fatal; b) studies often need to look at inheritance and genetics, which takes months in rats rather than decades in humans; c) researchers need to be able to control every element of a subject's development from birth. It's not a matter of whether the research would be more ethical on human subjects, it's that the research would be impossible.