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Experimentation with Children: The “Pawns” of Medical Technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Edward T. Porcaro
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Extract

Without the use of human subjects in pediatric research, medical science would not have made many of its advances in the diagnosis and treatment of children's diseases. However, scientifically valid experimental trials require healthy subjects as controls and the use of healthy children raises many complex moral and legal questions.

The need to experiment on normal, healthy children has blocked full recognition of their legal rights. Currently, as in the past, parents are allowed to volunteer their children as research subjects by means of “proxy consent.” This doctrine is, however, the only legal justification offered for submitting children to the often potentially damaging procedures they may be subject to as unknowing and perhaps unwilling subjects. While such third party consent appears to satisfy everyone's conscience, its use in non-therapeutic experimentation is inconsistent with established legal principles.

Type
Article
Information
Medicolegal News , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Summer 1979 , pp. 6 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1979

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