# Do Medical Researchers Use Themselves as Subjects? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728 "2006-09-30T13:06:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/1 "2006-09-30T13:06:08Z")
Suppose a doctor somewhere is doing research on the effect of some substance on the membranes of blood cells. So, he needs some blood cells. Could he conceivable just prick his own finger and use his own blood? Or is this perceived as unethical in some way, and he’d have to find a volunteer donor? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/2 "2006-09-30T13:28:51Z")
Not usually, but sometimes. Recently, the nobel prize was awarded to a scientist who drank a sample of helicobacter pylori himself to prove that these organisms cause stomach ulcers. > **[BBC NEWS | Health | Nobel for stomach ulcer discovery](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4304290.stm)** > > Australian scientists have been awarded the Nobel prize for medicine for their discovery that stomach inflammation can be caused by a bacterial infection. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/3 "2006-09-30T13:29:11Z")
It may not be done very often now, but it was certainly not unheard of in the past. Consider, for example, Albert Hoffman and his famous bicycle ride. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/4 "2006-09-30T14:14:46Z")
A veterinarian named Robert Lopez won an Ig Nobel prize for entomology in 1994 for infecting himself with cat ear mites. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/5 "2006-09-30T14:19:13Z")
The first guy to use local anesthesia supposedly did an operation on himself. Something big like open bowel surgery or something. Maybe to study the digestive tract?? I forget where I read it. I guess he did it because no one believed he could numb the pain. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/6 "2006-09-30T14:39:04Z")
It used to be done fairly often in the “good old days” of medical research. Development of the yellow fever vaccine included a few researchers and medical staff voluntarily subjecting themselves to the virus (and some of them died). I don’t think there’s anything unethical about using yourself as a source of cells for research, considering that you’d be fairly informed about the risks involved. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/7 "2006-09-30T17:08:30Z")
I’m pretty sure that whether or not a researcher used herself as a guinea pig, she’d still need to have a research plan that was approved by her Institutional Review Board. It matters less that you use yourself if that doesn’t screw up your variables, than whether you have permission to conduct that research at all. If not, a) you may not be able to publish results; and b) may lose your funding. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/8 "2006-09-30T23:48:34Z")
A history of the practice is \*Who Goes First?: The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine \* by Lawrence K. Altman, the longtime medical writer for the New York Times. The most hair-raising self-experiment I know of is the first cardiac catheterization. “Everyone knew” that shoving a catheter into a beating heart would stop the heart and kill the subject, so the doctor who did the first such catheterization not only did it on himself, he did it completely alone, because everyone he asked refused to help him. He set up an x-ray machine to take a picture of the inserted catheter so he could prove he’d succeeded. Louis Pasteur proposed self-testing his rabies vaccine: he would have himself vaccinated, then have himself inoculated with a viable rabies culture. He couldn’t do the inoculations himself though (as a chemist, he lacked the training, and was reportedly a little squeamish about invasive procedures anyway), and his medical collaborator, Emile Roux, refused to help him or even discuss the matter. So they had to wait until a suitable rabid-dogbite victim was available. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/9 "2006-09-30T23:57:59Z")
And when Craig Venter decided to map the human genome in competition with the official program, the human that he chose to map was … Craig Venter’s. ---
**Author:** ![Hirundo82](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/919ad9/32.png) [@Hirundo82](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirundo82)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/10 "2006-10-01T03:37:05Z")
When I worked in a research lab, when we ran experiments involving red blood cells we would draw blood from one of the people in the lab and use that. On that job, I would frequently be called upon to draw blood as I was the only person in the lab besides the physicians who had phlebotomy experience. This was only a little over a year ago, so it does still happen. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/11 "2006-10-01T03:55:53Z")
The first human on which the polio vaccine was tested was Dr Jonas Salk - the developer of that vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/12 "2006-10-01T04:08:23Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] The first guy to use local anesthesia supposedly did an operation on himself. Something big like open bowel surgery or something. Maybe to study the digestive tract?? I forget where I read it. I guess he did it because no one believed he could numb the pain. [/QUOTE] I think you’ve been misled on this. None of the claimants for ‘first’ use of anesthesia (Long, Well, Jackson, Morton) are recorded as having operated on themselves. In fact, it was public demonstrations of surgery under anesthesia that convinced the medical profession that it worked. Besides, the first anesthetics used (ether and chloroform) are general, not local anesthetics. A major bowel resection would normally use a general anesthetic, not local (at least until recently). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/13 "2006-10-01T04:47:32Z")
[QUOTE=ryobserver] The most hair-raising self-experiment I know of is the first cardiac catheterization. “Everyone knew” that shoving a catheter into a beating heart would stop the heart and kill the subject, so the doctor who did the first such catheterization not only did it on himself, he did it completely alone, because everyone he asked refused to help him. He set up an x-ray machine to take a picture of the inserted catheter so he could prove he’d succeeded. [/QUOTE] There is an interesting (unsourced) story about this in the Linux fortune files: > [@](#): > > Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. [This confirms by name the essentials of the story, but not the dramatic elements.](http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/museum/exhibit98/content/c8_11info.html) [Ditto this site.](http://www.hku.hk/anaesthe/LearNet/index.htm) It appears nobody wants to talk about future Nobel Prize winners tying women to tables. On preview, advancing a catheter from a vein in your arm into the right atrium must feel _really **funky** _. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/14 "2006-10-01T04:52:01Z")
That’s why we need a Nobel in Perv Arts. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/15 "2006-10-01T04:57:02Z")
If you DON’T use yourself as a subject, then some other jerk is going to wind up with the resulting superpowers. ---
**Author:** ![stochastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@stochastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stochastic)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/16 "2006-10-01T06:53:47Z")
Echoing Hirundo82’s post, as a grad student in a hematology research lab I regularly had the MD fellows punch holes in me and take out 50 ml or so of blood or bone marrow for our mine and other lab member’s experiments. Twas no big deal. I heard the best story of this self-experimentation during the retirement “roast” of my one-time boss, Dr. Roger Guillemin, 1977 Nobel prize winner in medicine and (co-)discoverer of the hypothalamic releasing factors and endorphins. After he and his colleague had purified a significant quantity of one of these hormones (and sorry, I don’t remember which it was), they injected some into themselves and then went home to their wives. Apparently, both their wives were very pleased by the results as it had a long-lasting stimulatory effect in the gonadal region. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/17 "2006-10-01T19:11:58Z")
Another answer would be Colonel John Stapp, who had the idea that experiments on human acceleration tolerance could enable the Air Force to devise better procedures, in the event of a crash, to allow more pilots to survive. Stapp wouldn’t allow anyone else to risk the tests, so it was he himself who was strapped into the rocket sleds. These experiments may be better known for the work of one of the other researchers, by the name of Murphy, who observed (after a run where all the diagnostic instruments were wired incorrectly) that if there’s a right way and a wrong way to do something, some fool will invariably choose the wrong way. ---
**Author:** ![gabriela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gabriela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gabriela)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-medical-researchers-use-themselves-as-subjects/374728/18 "2006-10-01T19:22:19Z")
[QUOTE=Snooooopy] If you DON’T use yourself as a subject, then some other jerk is going to wind up with the resulting superpowers. [/QUOTE] I think I love you.