During World War II, a group of American conscientious objectors (COs) volunteered to participate to in what have been called human challenge trials (HCTs) or, more recently, controlled human infection models (CHIMs). In CHIMs, researchers infect healthy subjects with known pathogens to study disease etiology or enable the development of new treatments or preventive measures. A distinctive feature of these trials is that they pose great risk to participants while offering them no medical benefit. Discussions of the ethics of CHIMs have focused on balancing risks to individuals against expected scientific gain and the promise new knowledge holds for patients at large. Little attention has been paid to points of view of people who participate in experiments.
This issue features themes and imagery from Infected for Science: A Graphic History (Graphic Mundi, 2026), a nonfiction “comic” by Sydney Halpern and artist Trygve Faste about COs who enrolled in United States government-sponsored hepatitis experiments. One of the COs, David H. Miller, crafted vivid cartoons of his and his compatriots’ experiences as study participants. Infected for Science draws on Miller’s cartoons and other historical documents to tell stories of men enrolled in wartime hepatitis-inducing experiments. The narrative reveals altruistic impulses that motivated Miller’s and other COs’ participation, but also the invasive procedures they endured, their alarm at resulting illnesses, and their reactions to learning about hepatitis-infection experiments at other locations. This issue draws readers’ attention to ethics, health policy, and health humanities inquiry generated from Miller’s and co-participants' viewpoints. And it elaborates how historical perspectives on biomedical experimentation can challenge, reaffirm, or reframe our approaches to human research ethics.
Manuscripts submitted for peer review consideration and inclusion in this issue must follow Instructions for Authors and be submitted by 30 November 2025.
The AMA Journal of Ethics® invites original, English-language contributions for peer review consideration on the upcoming themes.