This text is about the use of human beings in experiments related to matters of national security. Most of the cases discussed concern atomic, biological and chemical warfare, and the author traces the history of these projects in the U.S. (most were top-secret) and identifies the ethical problems facing policy makers. In particular, he challenges the reader to consider how far a democracy may go in using citizens, those of other countries and medical scientists in potentially risky experiments when national security may be at stake.
Jonathan Moreno, a former senior staff member of President Clinton's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, is Kornfeld Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University if Virginia. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, an Adjunct Associate of the Hastings Center, and a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. A regular bioethics columnist for abcnews.com, Moreno is the author of Deciding Together: Bioethics and Moral Consensus. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and Washington, D.C.