Medical and Health Humanities

Human medical experimentation upon captive, vulnerable subjects is not a relic of our American past. It is part of our present. The extensive history of medical experimentation on the disabled, the poor, the mentally ill, and the incarcerated has been little explored.

Schools have long been critical partners for public health authorities in achieving widespread vaccination. In the mid-20th century, however, public schools also served as sites of large-scale experiments on novel vaccines.

The prohibition against non-consensual human experimentation is now well established in both national and international law. Despite its status as a fundamental and non-derogable norm, the prohibition against non-consensual human experimentation was called into question during the War on Terror by the CIA's treatment of "high-value detainees."

The protection of vulnerable communities from the risks of unethical behaviour and exploitation, often associated with the outsourcing of clinical trials in developing countries, calls for respect of internationally agreed standards. This Article argues that massive experiments conducted in disregard of universal bioethical principles and human rights may amount to crimes against humanity under international criminal law.

If global medical research is to be safely accomplished, the international community will be forced to address the issue through application of international and comparative law. This case note provides in-depth analysis of the Abdullahi case and explores its implications on future ATS litigation.

The article discusses medical experimentation on humans and medical research in East Africa during the colonial period.

Although experimentation involving human volunteers has attracted intense study, the matter of self-experimentation among medical researchers has received much less attention. Many questions have been answered only in part, or have been left unanswered.