The Debate Over Willowbrook

Goldby's Criticisms

• It is morally wrong to perform an experiment on either a normal or a mentally retarded child when no benefit can result for that child.

• The institutionalized should not be used for human experimentation.

• A health care professional on the staff of a substandard institution has a duty first and foremost to improve the institution: It is morally wrong for the health care professional to turn the institution's failings to experimental advantage.

Krugman's Defense

• There was no additional risk for the subjects. Under the normal conditions at the institution the subjects would have been exposed to the same strains of hepatitis.

• Experimental subjects had a lowered risk of complications since they were housed in a special unit where there was little danger of exposure to other diseases.

• Experimental subjects had the chance of benefitting from immunization.

• Experimental subjects were obtained only with informed consent from parents.

Pappworth's Criticisms

• Experimentation on children, even with parental informed consent, is illegal unless it is in the interests of the child.

• According to one report, parents were told that the only way their child could be admitted to Willowbrook is through the hepatitis unit.

• The intention of the experiment was never the immunization of the children. That was merely an expected consequence. A moral purpose is required to justify an experiment.

• Every patient has a right to be treated decently by physicians--i.e., every physician has an obligation first and foremost to the patient. The patient's right supercedes every consideration about what would benefit humanity.