How so? The article is a bit biased in calling humans the subjects of the test, where it doesn't sound to me like an objective definition of the word supports that framing in the least. A subjects of an experiment is the entity being observed and on which data is being gathered. In this case, it is the bacteria, and the data that was gathered was their movement through the city. The humans were part of the environment the subject was tested in, but effects of the bacteria on the humans was not part of the hypothesis, and believed to be wholly negligible to humans.
The presumed original intent of the test was to assess the military risk from a bacteriological attack upon a U.S. city.
You couldn't build an empty mock city and test with it. Humans are a necessary element of biological contagion.
You couldn't get voluntary, informed consent from the inhabitants of an actual city, because behavioral patterns might change in response to the knowledge that the test was being conducted, and a lot of people would refuse to participate. Public knowledge of the test would screw up the test and make the results unreliable.
So there's no way to ethically perform such an experiment. But many soldiers also consider it their ethical imperative to protect the civilian populations of their country as well as they are able. Therefore, the rationale would be that in order to protect the lives of 300 million, the experimenters must trespass upon the rights upon 1 million, in a manner that most of them probably wouldn't even notice.
Of course, those people, having entirely too much trust in the essential goodness of their government, didn't consider that the same data could also be used to make bacteriological attacks on foreign populations more effective. They didn't consider whether their "harmless" bacterium was actually harmless. And they refused to take responsibility for the actual, demonstrable harm to unsuspecting humans.
This is why we have international conventions against certain military activities, and why we should not tolerate such tests to be conducted upon us, or anyone else. It makes no difference whether the humans are the subjects or the test medium, because the purpose of the test was to study biological warfare upon humans. And a biological weapon is one of the few weapons creatable at our current technology level that have the potential to annihilate our entire species. Any data gathered at all in this domain can only serve to make such weapons more effective, and defenses against them more complex. None of us can afford a human-versus-human arms race in this, as the one conducted between us and other species is a difficult enough struggle already.
The article is a bit biased in calling humans the subjects of the test... A subjects of an experiment is the entity being observed
It's actually pretty conventional to label any research that involves changing the environment of people as involving "human subjects" -- even if the purpose of the research is not directed at understanding how the change affects people.
Here [0], for example, is a U.S. Department of Energy web page that defines the "scope of research" for human subjects studies. It says, in part, [R]esearch using human subjects encompasses a broader range of research than many investigators... often realize. In addition to traditional biomedical and clinical studies, human subjects research includes, but is not limited to, studies that... evaluate environmental alterations
To make that even more explicit, they have a "regulations" web page [1]. The top link there is to a memo that clarifies that any "research involving intentional modification of an individual's or a group of individuals' environment" must be managed according to the rules for human subjects research.
(All that said, it's possible that the military did go through an internal "human subjects" review, which might have concluded that the trials were OK, on the basis that the agents were supposed to be harmless.)
> (All that said, it's possible that the military did go through an internal "human subjects" review, which might have concluded that the trials were OK, on the basis that the agents were supposed to be harmless.)
I find it likely that the military assessed the risk that their alteration posed (the inclusion of a single additional strain of "harmless" bacteria to the many that live in a city) against the danger posed by not understanding the spread of bacteria introduced to a city, and concluded that the research was a reasonable use of human subjects.
Just like the NSA concluded that it was reasonable to do what they did.
The frightening thing about the government is not that they do these things without concern for the moral implications, but rather that the government as a system fosters a disconnect from the people they govern and a fanaticism towards duty that drives reasonable people to unreasonable ends.
Very rarely does the government do atrocities without considering the moral implications: they simply believe they're doing good by them.
> the military assessed the risk [of including] a single additional strain of "harmless" bacteria to the many that live in a city
This does not seem as if it should have a very high risk...
> Just like the NSA concluded that it was reasonable to do what they did [...] they do these things without concern for the moral implications
Which NSA activity do you mean? Bulk collection of phone metadata on US residents? If the legal folks said they have a way of defending it as long as certain internal checks are in place, I don't think there are many "moral implications" to collecting data as an agency devoted to signals intelligence does all over the world, aside from the moral implications of signals intelligence itself.
> rarely does the government do atrocities without considering the moral implications
Now you're really escalating. "The government doing atrocity" usually involves intentionally killing a lot of people, not spraying the equivalent of sugar water or collecting phone records.
...must be managed according to the rules for human subjects research
I think applying the directive for human subjects research does not imply the humans involved are "human subjects" in the way nuremberg uses the term, because those rules don't appear say anything about being notified or opting out [1].
Correct my history if I'm mistaken, but I think Nuremberg was a result of direct experimentation on humans. It is using the still common definition of "experimental subject", which is the entity which is being studied, i.e. the properties of which are being measured.
I don't think it's practical to say the DoE or DHS cannot study air movement through a city without getting every occupant's approval. And how would that reasoning apply to a new radar dish design at an airport?
How so? The article is a bit biased in calling humans the subjects of the test, where it doesn't sound to me like an objective definition of the word supports that framing in the least. A subjects of an experiment is the entity being observed and on which data is being gathered. In this case, it is the bacteria, and the data that was gathered was their movement through the city. The humans were part of the environment the subject was tested in, but effects of the bacteria on the humans was not part of the hypothesis, and believed to be wholly negligible to humans.