Article Text
Abstract
Scientists in earlier times considered personal research participation an essential component of their work. Exposing themselves to untested interventions was seen as the most ethical way to gauge the human response to those interventions. The practice was also educational, for it generated useful information that helped researchers plan subsequent human studies. Self-experimentation was eventually replaced by more comprehensive ethical codes governing human research. But it is time to bring back the practice of self-experimentation, albeit in modified form. Through serving as a study subject, investigators and other research professionals can obtain valuable information about their work.
- Clinical trials
- Education for Health Care Professionals
- Research Ethics
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Request Permissions
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.
Copyright information:
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Can informed consent to research be adapted to risk
- Clinical research with economically disadvantaged populations
- Emergency care research ethics in low - income and middle - income countries
- Prisoners as research participants: current practice and attitudes in the UK
- Human infection challenge studies in endemic settings and / or low - income and middle - income countries: key points of ethical consensus and controversy
- Limits to research risks
- Self experimentation and the Nuremberg Code
- ‘ Who is going to put their life on the line for a dollar? That ’s crazy ’: community perspectives of financial compensation in clinical research
- Keep people informed or leave them alone? A suggested tool for identifying research participants who rightly want only limited information
- Understanding, interests and informed consent: a reply to Sreenivasan