The Changing Landscape of Human Experimentation: Nuremberg, Helsinki, and Beyond

Since World War II there have been persistent efforts at both the national and international level to develop rules to protect the rights and welfare of subjects of human experimentation.\u27 These efforts have focused primarily on codifying the rights of subjects, and protecting their welfare by prior peer review of research protocols. In recent years research regulations have been under attack by politicians, drug companies, researchers, and advocacy groups. In less than half a century, human experimentation has been transformed from a suspect activity into a presumptively beneficial activity. With this transformation, traditional distinctions between experimentation and therapy, subject and patient, and researcher and physician have become discouragingly blurred. Issues of power, money, control, and fear of death have often been more central than protection of the rights and welfare of research subjects