Using Humans for Research. Paper Sample

Using humans for research involves the conducting of experiments and medical analyses on human beings in hopes of finding more information on the biological threats facing human beings or the invention of new drugs and medical treatments. The use of humans may have various disadvantages and ethical concerns, but the advantages and the outcomes of this type of research, when properly conducted, can generate many tools that can be used to combat deadly diseases in the world today. The best way and method of dealing with the biological threats that face human beings is by studying the affected species, which in this case, are humans. It is only logical that for humans to obtain ways to combat diseases affecting them, they should be willing to work with medical practitioners to better their lives. There exist rules and regulations that govern human experimentations, and these rules ensure the safety of human beings as well as promotes the discovery of new drugs and disease combating methods. The primary beneficiaries of social research are society since the results and findings obtained by researchers are used to better the lives of other people in the community and, ultimately, the nation at large. Without human research, doctors and other researchers would not have experienced the feats in biological research that is realized today. Human patients have thus been a vital part in the improvement of their medical status and that of others. The proper conduction of social research is, therefore, an essential part of the advancement of medical research. There exist ethical regulations and concerns that drive and support research on humans; how these ethical concerns, such as autonomy, beneficence, justice, and honesty and integrity are achieved and realized as part of the outcomes of human experimentation, are discussed here.

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Ethical Principles

Autonomy

Autonomy as a moral concern dictates that every patient that has volunteered to take part as a subject in research and experimentation is free and allowed to make their decisions concerning the testing (Barry, 2012). Human experimentation respects the above ethical concern, and patients are allowed to decide before the beginning of the experiments, at the beginning of the research, and as the study progresses. Patients volunteer out of their free will to be part of the study, and thus, they want to help in the improvement of their lives and that of others.

Most researchers respect the decisions that patients make concerning their participation in a research process. Among the rights that come with autonomy is the ability to read the terms of the study, sign consent, and, at any time, withdraw consent for the research when the promised stipulations are manipulated or altered. Participants are free to withdraw from the experiment whenever they want to with no implications or consequences whatsoever.

Autonomy also protects the rights of patients who are not of sound mind or fully competent to make decisions for themselves. Ethically, researchers are not allowed to take advantage of the disabilities of some of the patients in conducting their studies (Barry, 2012). These patients have to be treated well and with the utmost respect even though they are not able to outline these stipulations themselves. There are some cases where some of the patients may misunderstand the conditions of the agreement. The issuing of consent is, therefore, a continuous process whereby any participant can withdraw consent whenever the scientists expect them to perform actions that may be uncomfortable to them.

Autonomy also promotes the confidentiality of the results obtained in the medical study. The patient should have the right to decide whether the medical information concerning them should be put out in the open or not. Patients who feel uncomfortable with other people knowing their medical status, for instance, have the right to keep the information private. The patients can also agree with the doctors to omit any evidence of their participation in the experiment if they are to share the results with the public. Some patients may feel attacked or judged if the audience is made aware of the results. Human research that aims to have positive results should, therefore, observe confidentiality and respect the needs and wants of the patient.

Beneficence

Beneficence, concerning medical research done on humans requires that the patients are not in any way harmed or injured during the medical examination (Barry, 2012). Patients who have given consent for research should be treated with the utmost care and patience. Scientists should ensure that they provide the much-required attention to their subjects and withdraw in an instant that they feel the participants' health may be at risk.

The researchers should, therefore, ensure that the experiments and type of research that they conduct on humans have very minimal chances of inducing bodily harm. Any injury on the body should be considered ranging from psychological harm to physical damage. The patients should be at ease and in the right state when undertaking this type of research (Barry, 2012). Some of the medical experiments may induce fear and psychological trauma on the patients, and therefore, doctors should ensure that patients are in stasis before doing such tests.

Beneficence allows the researchers to take into keen consideration the practices that may cause discomfort to their participants. Such practices, if small, may be often overlooked. Such short methods may include the piercing of patients to draw blood for observation, for instance, in medical examination. Medical researchers may sometimes ignore the fact that the repeated and continuous drawing of blood from patients may cause bodily harm. Medical studies done on humans while strictly observing beneficence practices allow the patient to be at ease and comfortable. The maintenance of this state promotes the development of a good rapport between the patients and the doctors, thus enhancing the maximum utilization of medical research.

Justice

Justice, which is a close relation to beneficence, requires the fair and equal treatment of all the participants for human research (Barry, 2012). There should be no favoritism from researchers by giving certain privileges to a particular patient while not giving the other any. The amount of pressure applied to all the patients should be equal, and researchers should have the same expectation of cooperation from each of the patients.

Justice ensures that no single patient is required to give more than they can handle. Scientists should provide all the patients undertaking the medical study with the same amount of care and protection. The background of the patients should not, in any way, influence the kind of attention that the officers give them. This concern requires that a patient who might be related to a prominent politician, for instance, be treated the same as a patient who is not in any way famously known in society. A patient who comes from a wealthy background should be treated the same as a volunteer from a miserable experience. This equal attention ensures that the results obtained from these subjects are accurate and not in any way influenced by the variation in the care given to patients under study.

Justice also ensures that the expectations that the researchers have of the patient are somehow equal or similar to the benefits that the patient will reap from the study. The outcome and the improved state of the participants after the survey should determine the amount of input that the individual provides to the study. The benefits may include any form of payment after the research that will help the patient recover the time and resources that they lost when undertaking human research.

Another type of benefit is the improvement of the health of the patient or other people in society who have illnesses relating to medical research. The impact that the study will have on the health of other people in the community should be proportional to the required input from the patient. A third benefit is the amount of knowledge that will be available to the public after the research. The medical study should ultimately provide sufficient and quality expertise that will help combat illnesses and other biological implications in the future.

Honesty and Integrity

Honesty in human research demands that the researchers share and reveal the results of the study as they are. The scientists are not allowed to falsify, fabricate, or in any way, manipulate the data obtained from the experiments carried on humans. Whatever the nature and the inclination of the outcomes of the research study, the involved parties should share the information as it is. Researchers should be open and truthful to their participants. The officers should also inform the patients about any information concerning their health. For instance, some of the medical examinations done during this period are very thorough, and they, therefore, lead to the discovery of various medical complications that had not been earlier known.

Honesty also involves avoiding any form of inclinations in the research study. The researchers involved should have a chief objective, and they should follow this objective to the latter. Scholars should not, at any point, deviate from the driving force of the study to fulfill other concerns that they did not have at the beginning.

Religious Traditions

Religion has a vast influence on medical practices in the world today. This influence is because religion provides the rules and regulations that govern the believers in the world. Religious people, therefore, have particular inclinations to scientific practices such as the conduction of human research. Religious traditions often have a goal of ensuring that people in the community have a comfortable life and are uplifted from the factors that cause poverty and sickness.

Religion has the benefit of empowering the individual through connecting him/her to a community, and to a superior force, that might, in turn, give psychological stability (Basu-Zharku, 2011). This religious practice that promotes the empowerment of people to provide them with confidence, thus supports the conduction of human research, provided its ultimate goal is to improve the lives of people in society today.

Topic analysis

Human research has several advantages that improve the lives of people. This research type has enabled the realization of significant milestones and achievements in the biological sector and thus has proven to be very vital for a human living (Jonas, 2017). The benefits that society has reaped from social research include the invention and discovery of new types of medicine and treatment techniques. The main reason why this has been possible is that the diseases that doctors study affect human beings.

The education and research that scientists have done on humans have enabled them to be conversant with the methods that these pathogens use to infect the human body. This knowledge of how biological infections works has been essential in the development of ways to combat these illnesses and other factors affecting society. These methods would not have been discovered if there had been no conduction of human research.

The conduction of human research is essential and essential because it leads to the formation of health policies and intervention measures. To devise methods to prevent further infection from illnesses and the containment of already active diseases, we require a study on human beings (Jonas, 2017).