• AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    It depends on the specifics of the experiment. Throughout the 20th century, the people most keen on unethical medical experiments seemed the least able to design useful experiments. Sometimes people claim that we learned lots from the horrific medical experiments taking place at Nazi concentration camps or Japanese facilities under Unit 731, but at best, it’s stuff like how long does it take a horribly malnourished person to die if their organs are removed without anaesthesia or how long does it take a horribly malnourished person who’s been beaten for weeks to freeze to death, which aren’t much use.

    • Grimpen@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      I’m pretty sure that 80% if what we learned from the Nazi/Imperial Japan super unethical experiments was “what can a psychotic doctor justify in order to have an excuse to torture people to death.”

      Maybe 20% was arguably useful, and most of that could have been researched ethically with other methods.

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
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      11 hours ago

      This one was making a child with an HIV-positive parent resistant to HIV, so it’s a bit better than 731 torture.

      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        It’s crazy that people are trying to make this comparison. They are worlds apart. Notice how the post and most people talking about it aren’t discussing what he actually did? Because the situation gets a lot murkier when you learn the details.

        “Experimenting on babies” - What?! That’s unethical and immoral! Must be junk science with no benefit!

        “Made babies at risk of HIV immune to it” - Well… That’s good for the babies, but maybe he should have gone through proper channels.