Medical Research and Incompetent Adults

Abstract

The spectre of Nazi medical experimentation during the Second World War undoubtedly hangs over any discussion of medical research and incompetent adults. The concentration camp experiments denied the rights of people who would have been able to give or withhold consent but were, of course, not asked. The fears raised by the nature of these experiments has given rise to a real, understandable and genuine concern that research participants, particularly those who are vulnerable, may be abused through their participation. For example, Professors Kennedy and Grubb take the view that nontherapeutic research on incompetent adults is prohibited and go on to say that “given the history of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s which culminated in the Nuremberg Trials ... it is entirely understandable that some European countries would hold the view that an absolute prohibition was the only defensible [position].” The question that arises is whether prohibition is always the correct approach, or whether some forms of research should be permissible, recognising that strict protections will be necessary. We reflect upon the rigidity of the distinction between therapeutic and non-therapeutic research in the context of a research project that we undertook.