Should Scientists Take the Risk of Experimenting on Themselves?

Experimental science is not rare as a type of self-experimentation throughout the history of discovering new scientific insights including Barry Marshall who was awarded the Nobel Prize for identifying Helicobacter pylori. Nonetheless, the contemporary case involves virologist Beata Halassy who called oncolytic virotherapy for breast cancer on herself (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Is it ever OK for scientists to experiment on themselves?

Go to source).

Autonomy and Reasonable Risk in Self-Experimentation

The principle of informed consent can be considered as the key method of protecting participants from risks of experimental interventions. Using knowledge already acquired in her field of specialty as a virologist, Halassy did an informed self-assertion by imbuing experimental treatment. Still, not all the self-experimenters have the proper knowledge, which is a problem of risk-taking inside biohacking subcultures.

According to ethical considerations, risks in research to the individuals have to be in proportion to the benefits to be accrued and when at all possible, have to be eliminated. In Halassy’s case, he used viruses with a good safety history after conventional treatments such as surgical operation, namely mastectomy together with chemotherapy.

Nonetheless, deciding on ‘reasonable risk’ is anything but if the experimental treatment is still in its pilot stage or if the test subject stands no to knowingly benefit from the experiment. What Experimentalism, in a normal way, involves only one person, in Marshall’s study, great results can be achieved.

Potential Harm to Others

Although fictional portrayals like The Fly exaggerate risks, self-experimentation can lead to real-world harms:

Influence on Others: Majority of such patients may decide to neglect orthodox treatment modalities in favor of such procedures.

Adverse Publicity: Society always(features) a certain level of trust towards scientific research, but lethal experiments decide this trust.

Advertisement

Misuse of Technology: The availability of such devices as Crispr-Cas9 prompts some people to wonder about negative or ill-intentioned applications: for this reason, societal acceptance may be undermined.

Experimental use of oneself can be both ethical and advantageous if several factors are met; including consent by the researcher, something resembling minimal risk which is in turn reasonably controlled, as well as a form of oversight. However, the opportunity falls short of analyzing societal effects or potential negative consequences, which all speak to the need for regulation. But this is a fortunate result of Halassy's self-experimentation; not all staphylococcal infections will have such a happy ending. There must be ethical supervision in order to put innovation in check and make sure they are responsible for their creations.

Advertisement

Reference:

1. Is it ever OK for scientists to experiment on themselves? - (https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2024/11/is-it-ever-ok-for-scientists-to-experiment-on-themselves/)

Source-Medindia