Self Experimentation - A Betting Game
“Can I Experiment On Myself If I Wanted To?”
Have you ever thought or wanted to experiment on yourself?
It may or may not have crossed your mind to test how you react to different situations and experiences. You may be generally curious or have a targeted approach. On a personal level, self-experimentation is not something frowned upon at-least by ethical boundaries. Involving medicinal science however, comes forth the involvement of laws and ethics itself. How far can you go?
Well, what even is self-experimentation? In simple terms, it is the process of researching and experimenting upon one’s own self, where the same person designs the experiment, documents it and is the subject itself. To forward research in medicine, both history and science fiction have seen multiple instances of self-experimentation of diseases and “thought to be cures” some of which proved successful and others? Not so much!
Movies Involving Self Experimentation:
We all love a good movie don’t we? Well so do movie producers love producing one and what better in the era of the 2000s than science fiction? Movies love to show self-experimentation and thankfully show both pros and cons! One such example is that of Hollow-man, where the main character Sebastian and his team are producing an invisibility serum that functions exactly as it sounds like! In the process of producing a reverse serum, Sebastian decides to be the first person to under-go human trials for both processes! In this form of action, we see a not so selfless side of self-experimentation where ego and hunger of glory come in the way of scientific reasoning. The reverse serum fails and the project along with nearly the entire team goes to ashes (the explosion at the end)!
It’s not all gloom and doom when it comes to movies and self-experimentation, at-least not in the movie World War Z! This movie is about the outbreak of a virus that turns healthy people into zombies and spreads through a single bite. Cutting to the chase, the main character Gerry Lane (acted by Brad Pitt) realizes that the zombies ignore weak, old and infected people! He decides to acquire the deadly pathogens in a lab and successfully does so but is blocked by a zombie and forced to test his theory upon himself! Upon injecting himself with one the pathogens, he is able to simply walk through a hoard of zombies ignored, proving his hypothesis correct. This is used as a “vaccine” to allow counter measures to be taken against the zombie and in the end Gerry is reunited with his family. Who doesn’t love a happy ending?
Brief History of Self Experimentation:
While it is true fiction and reality are two lines that may or may never meet, what does history say regarding our query? We have seen Barry Marshall win a Noble prize after drinking a culture of Helicobacter pylori (let’s just call it H. bacteria) to prove they cause ulcers and went through extreme discomfort and pain ultimately proving his theory (1984). Other scientists aren’t so fortunate, Jesse Lazear was a physician who exposed himself during the outbreak of Yellow fever to try and understand it for a cure passed away during his self-experiment. Multiple such instances throughout the past have occurred, some making scientific breakthroughs no doubt! But others? Causing irreparable damage such as the loss of lives. If you want to learn more about such experiments, watch this video:
Where do you draw the line?
What are the ethics of self-experimentation? Let this fact be clear that ethics of research itself on others apply directly experimentation of one’s self as well. A person simply cannot put himself in harm’s way blindly even if it is for “the advancement of science and medicine”. The Nuremberg Principles Article 5 has the only relation in it towards self-experimentation, stating: “No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur, except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
—Nuremberg court, principles of human experimentation”. This also applies to the self, where there should be lesser risk towards yourself as the subject. Watch this short video to learn more about the Nuremberg Code:
What about today?
In the 21st century while it is true that self-experimentation has decreased tremendously, so have laws and regulatory bodies to authorize and supervise researches. The truth is where risks aren’t high, scientists will still prefer to self-experiment such as drawing and studying their own blood simply due to convenience. It protects them from legal problems and might even save them from paper work and approval. Furthermore, putting yourself (the researcher) in the place of the subject in studies where complicated variables such as how the subject’s mood and mental state varies makes the researcher the perfect subject for the study. An ideal example for this is when neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley in the University of California took part in his own designed experiments of video games he develops to improve brain function, where he had to take multiple exhausting tests but more importantly was able to witness the perspective of the player himself and improve his games for the user! This is seen in WWZ when Gerry injects himself to not only save himself but in the exact situation that would buy vital time and fighting strategy for the survival of humanity itself! However, these self-experiments will not be published or be a part of publications but are kept undocumented due to the controversy they bring even in today’s scientific world and pressure from the institutions these scientists are working for.
Authenticity of Findings?
Flipping the coin! The same factors of emotions, expertise and personal link to the studies may lead to the researcher providing incorrect data to further his research where he wants it to go or even simply to forward the research. This example is seen in Hollow-man where Sebastian lies to the Pentagon to be the first invisible person. Greed, ambition, hunger for fame, and all such emotions may lead to biased results or carrying of research. This is why the presence of an external or unbiased regulatory body is necessary to monitor the study without interfering until necessary while overlooking the entire process.
Conclusion:
There will be never be a black and white when it comes to research ethics, especially in the case of self-experimentation. As mankind progresses, different opportunities scientific or not will emerge where a person through ambition or whatever emotion drives him will put himself at risk and gamble for the benefit. However, if you wants to bet, play smart and safe.
1. https://www.science.org/content/article/do-it-yourself-when-researcher-becomes-subject
2. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2018.2059
3. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe1963
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CMql2TRQV8
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