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The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research
In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals program after church volunteers came to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center—and were surprisingly happy despite going through sometimes-painful procedures. In the decades to follow, the program got bigger as government funding expanded and started to recruit more broadly, stepping away from specific religious groups toward recruiting from colleges, universities, and unions.
In this episode, we hear about how normal human subjects experience research today and the ways the normals project influenced oversight and safety for these sometimes vulnerable people.
All episodes in this series
Appearing in this episode:
Laura Stark, history professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University
Jill Fisher, professor of social medicine in the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kaviya Manoharan, lecturer and clinical research program manager in the Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre
Martin Enserink, deputy news editor at Science
Kevin McLean, Science multimedia managing producer
Sarah Crespi, Science Podcast senior host and producer
Additional resources:
BOOKS
The Normals: A People’s History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments by Laura Stark
Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals by Jill Fisher
NEWS STORIES
Global effort aims to protect health and safety of human ‘guinea pigs’ in drug trials by Martin Enserink
Key global bioethics guidelines get ‘dramatic’ update by Cathleen O’Grady
WEBSITES
Volrethics
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