The Challenges of Challenge Experiments

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 371; no. 8; pp. 695 - 697
• Main Author: Lederer, Susan E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Massachusetts Medical Society 21.08.2014
• Subjects: Beecher, Henry K; Disease; Ethics, Research - history; Experiments; Female; Healthy Volunteers - history; History, 18th Century; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Human Experimentation - ethics; Human Experimentation - history; Humans; Male; Smallpox - history; Smallpox - prevention & control; Smallpox Vaccine - history; Vaccines; Waterhouse, Benjamin (1754-1846); New York; United States > US; Turkey
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1408554

Challenge experiments involving infecting healthy human subjects to test the efficacy of a new vaccine can be invaluable, but historically, researchers sometimes undertook such efforts with little attention to ethical concerns raised by purposefully making people sick. Challenge experiments that involve infecting healthy human subjects as a means to test the efficacy of a new vaccine can be invaluable. Great strides in understanding how to treat and prevent such infectious diseases as smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, and influenza have resulted from research involving human beings — both volunteers and those who were “volunteered” to participate. The history of medicine is studded with episodes in which children, men, and women were deliberately infected with pathogens in the hopes of elucidating ways of mitigating, preventing, or curing infections — an approach that continues to be pursued today, as evidenced . . .