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Uncle Sam Wants You...
The Ethics of Experimental Testing on Military Personnel
Sam Korpics
Most people would accredit negligible and non permissible experimental human testing to the
Nazi doctors on Jews in the concentration camps during World War I. Yet most people would not
accredit the same negligible actions to the United States Military. History recalls countless events
where the U.S. military disregards its personnel’s wellbeing without their knowledge in the name
science.
Experimental human testing has been approached
by countless articles and decrees, such as the Nuremburg
Code, and because of these documents the occurrence of
non permissible human testing has decreased. Or at least
this decrease was so until the threat of biological warfare
was received by Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf
War in 1990.
In an attempt to help the war effort and keep the
men and women serving in our military safe and capable of
doing their jobs the Department of Defense decided it was
necessary to distribute experimental drugs to all of its
personnel deploying to the war zone without their
knowledge. Pyridostigmine bromide (PB) and botulinum
toxoid vaccine (BT), drugs that prevent against the affects
of anthrax and botulism, were not FDA approved or tested in humans at this point. The use of these
experimental drugs has lead to complications in the health of the servicemen who took them. Also,
some research has implied that these drugs are the cause of the Gulf War Syndrome not the
environmental aspects of the Persian Gulf War. The military defends its actions with the explanation
that the distribution of these experimental drugs was vital to the cohesion and health of the military
as a whole. In the military’s eyes these drugs aren’t research but instead they are a treatment or
preventative measure. Also when a U.S citizen enters into the military they recognize that there are
certain privileges that are given up for the protection of our Nation. Is their health one of those
privileges?