Author(s)

Curt Devlin

Boston College, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA.

This is a declaration of the fundamental human right of all people, simply by virtue of being human, to be free from subjection to all forms of experimentation unless they voluntarily consent to participate after being fully informed of all risks by qualified experts in all relevant fields. Further, it asserts that everyone retains the right to opt out of any experiment, each of their own accord, and at any time, even after consent has been freely given and the experiment is underway. This paper argues for the urgent need to broadly expand the definition of human research in order to extend protections against illicit experimentation far beyond the boundaries of formal medical and scientific research; to recognize the full scope of ethical principles embodied in the Nuremberg Code of 1947; and, ultimately, to enact these protections into law. In support of these contentions, three primary examples have been chosen to illustrate recent and widespread violations of these fundamental rights. Examples have been chosen from social media, the tobacco industry, and wind energy production precisely because they fall well outside this boundary of formal human research as conventionally defined, and they demonstrate the need for wider protections in all walks of life, as a fundamental dictate of social justice.

Unwarranted Experimentation, Human, Rights, Research, Nuremberg Code, Facebook, Tobacco, Wind Energy

Devlin, C. (2017) Freedom from Unwarranted Experimentation. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 23-48. doi: 10.4236/jss.2017.55003.