Essay On Human Testing

Drugs; an integral part in modern medicinal culture. Almost any problem can be solved with a simple pill, vitamin, or injection. However, with the usage of animals to test pharmaceuticals, there is no one hundred percent guarantee that a drug will work the same way in humans as it did in experimental trials (Shanks, R. Greek, and J. Greek 2). Unpredicted drug reactions and side effects is a big killer in the United States, taking 100,000 lives each year (Archibald 1). Yet, society abhors human testing. This is due to the past horrors that had been revealed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Since then, human testing is scrutinized and rarely used in modern society; it is practically banned. I believe that the only way we can learn precisely how certain drugs affect the human body is to test on the most accurate model: the human body. Although controversial in society, we can use those who are deemed as “morally unfit” (Lasagna 452). Those that are seen as the scum of the earth, child molesters, rapists, murderers and other violent crime offenders, can actually help benefit society in some way. As a utilitarian, I see this as creating positivity from the negativity of the world. From a utilitarian perspective, human pharmaceutical testing on prisoners would create a beneficial gain for society as a whole, and give scientists more accurate research.

A simple opposition to my argument is that we do

Although animals are in ample supply and typically are good models for human beings, they are not the highest fidelity model. In some cases when analyzing the side effects on an animal subject to see how it would effect a human, the results can be as accurate as flipping a coin (Archibald 1). No test can be one hundred percent accurate when regarding humans if the subjects used are an entirely different species. The best way to see what would happen to a human being is to test a human