Therapeutic and non-therapeutic research
Traditionally, research has been divided into two separate categories:
therapeutic research, which combined research with an attempt at improving patient care,
non-therapeutic research, whose sole aim was to gather knowledge. [5]
It was argued that physicians should be free to use experimental diagnostic or therapeutic measures if it might benefit the patient. Less stringent safeguards were therefore needed in relation to such research. More recently it has been argued that this distinction is outmoded and should be dropped. Not only are the differences between the two blurred and unhelpful, but they can also disguise the fact that some therapeutic research is much more hazardous than the non-therapeutic variety. As prisons are unusual environments, that both increase opportunities for the transfer of pathogens, and place inmates under unique psychological stresses, prison health staff may consider using experimental procedures or techniques. Wherever the intention is to acquire new knowledge, irrespective of whether there is also some intended therapeutic gain, rather than solely to provide a benefit for the individual, the ethical considerations outlined here apply.
[5] Ibid.