Experimentation on Human Beings
![handle is hein.journals/stflr20 and id is 133 raw text is: Experimentation on Human Beings
I. INTRODUCTION
In July 1963 Drs. Chester M. Southam and Emanuel E. Mandel in-
jected live cancer cells into 22 debilitated patients at the Jewish Chronic
Disease Hospital of Brooklyn without the patients' voluntary and informed
consent. The experiment, financed by the United States Public Health
Service' and the American Cancer Society, was part of a project aimed at
discovering ways to build up immunities against cancer. The experiment
was designed to test Southam's hypothesis that bodies racked by serious
but noncancerous diseases would reject implanted live cancer cells as rap-
idly and completely as healthy bodies and more quickly than bodies already
suffering from cancer. The experiment confirmed Southam's hypothesis.
Dr. Southam's work had been recognized as among the most promising
of all lines of cancer research.2 In his opinion, the project presented no
risk of harm to the patients,3 and apparently no patients suffered any ill
effects from the experiment Nevertheless, because Dr. Southam and his
colleague Dr. Mandel failed to inform the patients that the injections con-
tained live cancer cells and were in no way related to their normal thera-
peutic programs, the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New
York found the two doctors guilty of fraud and deceit and of unprofes-
I. See 2 U.S. PuB. HALnT Smv., REsEARcH GRsANS INDEx 1459 (1965); Lear, Do We Need New
Rules for Experiments on People?, SArO3DAY Ray., Feb. 5, 1966, at 6i, 67.
2. 151 SCIENCE 663 (1966); 143 SCIENCE 551 (1964). At the time of this experiment Dr. Sou-
tham was a full member of the distinguished Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and the
head of its sections of clinical virology and oncogenic virology. He was an associate professor of medi-
cine at the Cornell University College of Medicine, associate attending physician at Memorial Hospital
for Cancer and Allied Diseases (New York City), and associate visiting physician at James Ewing
Hospital (New York City). He was a special consultant to the United States Public Health Service and
the National Cancer Institute, a member of the panel that recommends recipients of research grants
from the American Cancer Society, a member of the scientific advisement committee of the Damon
Runyon Fund, and a research advisory panelist for both the World Health Organization and the Inter-
national Union Against Cancer. Dr. Mandel was the director of medicine and medical education at the
Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital (New York City). Lear, supra note I, at 65.
3. According to Southam, [W]ithin any reasonable definition of the words 'no risk' there was
no risk. x43 SCIENCE 55i, 552 (1964). On the other hand, Bernard Pisani, past president of the Medi-
cal Society of the County of New York, testified in a New York supreme court proceeding involving
the Southam-Mandel episode: The known hazards of such experiments include the growth of nodules
and tumors and may result in a metastasis [spreading of cancer] if the patient does not reject the cells.
Quoted in Letter from William A. Hyman, 152 SCIENCE 865 (3966). In a previous part of the project,
Southam had injected live cancer cells into healthy inmates of the Ohio State Penitentiary with their
consent. He said he did not use himself and his colleagues because it would have served no useful
purpose. [I) did not regard the experiment as dangerous. But, let's face it, there ate relatively few
skilled cancer researchers, and it seemed stupid to take even the little risk. Quoted in 143 SCIENCE
551 (1964).
4. Two of the patients died soon after the injections, but they were already seriously ill. The
committee investigating the experiment did not challenge the assertion of Drs. Southam and Mandel
that the injections did not cause or contribute to the deaths. See Lear, supra note I, at 68; 543 SCIENCE
551 (1964).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/stflr20&div=19&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Experimentation on Human Beings
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