Identify the ethical issue(s) in each experiment. Beginning in the 1940s, the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago tested anti-malaria medications on inmates at the Stateville Penitentiary. Inmates readily volunteered, as their parole would be reviewed upon completion of their sentence. Inmates who participated in the study reported that they were informed of the risks involved in participating in the study, including the possibility of death.
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram studied the willingness of subjects to obey an authority figure, even at the risk of being harmed. The subjects believed they were taking part in a study on learning. They were assigned to the role of teacher and were ordered to administer electrical shocks with increasing voltage to the learner whenever the learner made an error. The learner was an actor who remained unharmed. The subjects were not initially told that it was a study of obedience, as this might affect the outcome, and they were not prepared for possible psychological distress.
In the 1950s and 60s, Saul Krugman infected mentally disabled children enrolled at the Willowbrook State School in New York with hepatitis in order to better understand how the disease spread and how it could be combatted. Parents agreed to enroll their children in the study in exchange for admission to the school.