Scientific Discovery and Human Life
Scientific inquiry is rooted in the desire to discover, but there is no discovery so important that in its pursuit a threat to human life is tolerable.The spirit of scientific inquiry is our desire to know and discover. In modern society science is held in high regard not only because of the practical applications and technological advances that it can bring about; the fact that science can unveil more mysteries and solve more problems presented to us by nature is believed to be able to improve the human condition and make humans more powerful contributed to such an understanding as well.
Although scientific discovery is important to us as humans, there are certain limitations to what can be done and what cannot be. For example, when the process of scientific discovery constitutes a threat to human life, it might not be acceptable under most circumstances, especially if we limit our definition of 'human life' to adults who are unquestionably alive. For example, as people discovered that the special forces of Japan conducted experiments on their prisoners-of-war in China during the Second World War, they were widely criticised and the officer-in-charge was convicted of war crimes by the Allied tribunal after the war. In this example, the Japanese scientists who took part in the experiments wanted to know the effects of certain pathogenic agents on human beings, and one can argue that they were partly driven by the 'desire to discover' as well; however, the fact that they deliberately put human beings in danger and in actual fact killed some of them through their scientific process rendered their actions unacceptable.
However, under very limited and tightly controlled circumstances, a threat to human life can be tolerated in the process of scientific discovery. In cases where the effects of novel drugs need to be identified, the clinical trials designed would always place a certain level of threat to the life of the patient. In some instances, the threat can be very real. A few years ago, a young man died of an overblown systemic immune response when he received a dose of transgenic adenoviruses directly injected to his liver in a trial which aimed to correct a genetic metabolic disorder that he suffered from. Despite such problems, clinical trials involving novel therapeutic strategies are still continuing and are still widely accepted as an important means for advancement in medicine. That is because, other than actually trying these novel measures on actual patients, there is no other reliable alternative to test their effectiveness and safety before they can be widely used by patients generally. If such trials are not allowed, we will never have new strategies available to tackle the increasing amount of illnesses that people suffer from and will post a significant obstacle in the advancement of medicine and the standard of living of our sick.
Thus, it would be fair to conclude that in cases where an outright disregard of human life is involved in the scientific process, that scientific process should never be allowed, just like the case of the Japanese during the Second World War. Unnecessary threats to human life in a scientific process, such as in cases where there are alternatives other than the process proposed, should not be allowed either. Only in cases where there is no other alternative other than direct trials on humans that a certain level of threat to human life during that process can be tolerated. Even in those cases, carefully evaluated protocols regarding what can and what cannot be done has to be strictly enforced to minimise the health risks that the patients serving as test subjects has to bear.
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