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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?