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from the how-do-you-test-its-effectiveness? dept.
"Biohackers" are growing bolder with their self-experimentation:
Aaron Traywick, 28, who leads biotech firm Ascendance Biomedical, used an experimental herpes treatment that did not go through the typical route of clinical trials to test its safety. Instead of being developed by research scientists in laboratories, it was created by a biohacker named Andreas Stuermer, who "holds a masters degree and is a bioentrepreneur and science lover," according to a conference bio. This is typical of the Ascendance approach. The company believes that FDA regulations for developing treatments are too slow and that having biohackers do the research and experiment on themselves can speed up the process to everyone's benefit. In the past, the company's plans have included trying to reverse menopause, a method that is now actually in clinical trials.
"We prefer to do everything before a live audience so you can hold us accountable in the days to come as we collect the data to prove whether or not this works," Traywick said before last night's spectacle. And, he added, "if we succeed with herpes in even the most minor ways, we can move forward immediately with cancer."
Despite specifying that he wanted "technical questions," someone in the audience asked whether Ascendance had received ethical permission for the experiment. Traywick said he didn't. Technically, everything has been officially labeled "not for human consumption," he said.
Also at The Scientist.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday February 07 2018, @04:23PM (9 children)
Enlighten me - what exactly are the ethical concerns of experimenting on *yourself*?
Now, if you've actually been duped/manipulated into performing someone else's experiment on yourself, then that's a rather different scenario. Hmm, it would also be consistent with a live broadcast of the critical moment - plenty of witnesses to help absolve the actual experimenter of responsibility.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:38PM (3 children)
From a regulatory perspective so long as they're only experimenting on themselves I think the FDA should leave them alone.
From a science perspective, though, how useful is an experiment performed on a sample of one?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:25PM (1 child)
Instead of experimenting on themselves, the researchers should grow human children in artificial wombs and experiment on them.
I Am Absolutely Serious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:53AM
Even if you managed to make clones of yourself, they'd have their rights like any other human and they would be protected from you exerting your experiments on them.
However, if you made clones of yourself as a backup and then experimented on yourself, that would be ethically OK! But, you don't really know if your clones would volunteer to continue your work once they grow up and emancipate, and I am pretty sure that they would be prevented from being persuaded by your notes to do so.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:26PM
Exploratory experiments can actually be quite useful - you're unlikely to learn anything concrete from one such an experiment unless the results are very dramatic, but a large number of diverse experiments can serve to highlight avenues worthy of more in-depth research. Sure, there'll be plenty of false positives and negatives, but it's a huge improvement over blindy jumping directly into investing the resources for a statistically significant experiment size.
It's also quite useful for initial safety studies - you don't have to kill 100 mice to know there's a problem with your serum, you can be reasonably certain after the first one or two keel over after the injection. Especially if dissection reveals your serum as a likely culprit.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:04PM
No ethics issues with experimenting on yourself. Maybe some few screws loose, if they aren't doing best practices. Other than that, all we've got here is the next YouTube video of people doing dumb things. Medical research is expensive, because we don't play with people's lives. Theoretically anyway, big Pharma seems to be rather corrupt though, so who knows.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:31PM
If you are willing to experiment on yourself, you are a bit too invested emotionally in your research. Confirmation bias? Hard to do a double-blind trial with just me, myself, and I. Even moreso in front of cameras. So it is bad science, very bad. And if the "researcher" in question is subjecting him or her self to dangers that no rational person would consent to risk, we might invite this very smart science lover to a select research institute where the greatest minds in the world are free to pursue their ground-breaking research free of government interference (but bound by "I love me" jackets, padded cells, and liberal non-therapuetic drugs).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)
It's a problem if it costs a lot of other people's money and time to save you. Or somehow you screwed up and made a worse contagious disease. By the way some "live" vaccines can in theory spread disease to immune compromised people.
So I think it's ethical if:
a) it works with no issues
b) nothing really happens
c) it kills you quickly
And it can't really hurt other people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:21PM
a), b), c), and d) "it can't really hurt other people" can't be known before the experiment.
In other words, you're saying the ends justify the means. Except we don't know where it ends.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:53AM
I can think of several examples where experimenting on yourself can have disastrous consequences, ethically, for others:
- Dr Jeckyll
- Dr Octopus
- Dr Polaris
- The Fly