Biomedical Vaccination History

Human Experimentation: Policy of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow For centuries, medical research on human subjects has been conducted across the world. Historical accounts of medical human research date back to the development of vaccinations in the 1796 (Stern, 2005); although, it is understood that studies to further understand the human body were conducted centuries before this. Through these vaccination experiments, profound evidence emerged that would drastically impact and help global populations (Stern, 2005). Unfortunately, in other cases, results were detrimental and torturous to the human subjects. These kinds of studies often focused on the progression of diseases or the effects of biological or pharmaceutical agents on humans. Regardless

Title I describes the “award” aspect of the bill to help fund health-related research. The purpose is to expand rewards for ethical, health research with very specific stipulations, criteria and accountability procedures. It places most of this responsibility in the hands of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. While this is significant in its own sense, Title II presents even more profound and impactful implications. It is relevantly entitled “Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research”. It creates the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the National Advisory Council for the Protection of Subjects and Biomedical and Behavioral Research and Institutional Review Boards (Congressional Research Service (CRS), 2014). These three developments alone are only part of this lengthy legislation; however, they are probably the greatest achievements of it – as they all effectively remain

Therefore, it only makes sense that the next step is to determine what makes a human. While that discussion can be left up to the several levels of congressional committees and the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, I am confident that the discussion needs to happen on two levels. First, federal stem cell research laws need to be developed. There has been an effort for this in the last 15 years, but it needs to remain strongly advocated for until a law passes that allows for stem cell research and includes whatever exception needs to be made. Whatever this results to, the funding laws need to be coordinated with this law; in that definitions should match. For instance, right now funding is supplied to stem cell research only for those researching on embryos that have not been created simply for research with the possibility of injury or destruction (as stated earlier). Therefore, it could be enacted that that is the only kind of legal research, and it is illegal to research on embryonic cells created for the sole purpose of research – as many states have done. On a second level, a definition of “life” should be developed to help define the conflicting ideas of this. The definition of “ethics” had to be defined in American history in order to