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The Not-So-Hidden Secret That Scientists Experiment on Themselves
Some influential discoveries have come from researchers experimenting on their own bodies
There is a long and storied history of scientists experimenting on themselves. Some of this research has resulted in life-saving discoveries and major accolades. For example, in the early 1980s, Australian scientist Barry Marshall drank a broth containing the bacterial strain Helicobacter pylori to prove that the bacteria, not stress, caused stomach ulcers. Sacrificing his gut ultimately earned him a Nobel Prize. Other auto-experiments have provided alternative contributions to humanity, like Albert Hofmann who accidentally (and then intentionally) dosed himself with LSD after discovering the compound while searching for new medical drugs.
According to one 2019 paper, this type of research remains a modern practice. Out of 52 scientists surveyed, 26 admitted to experimenting on themselves in procedures ranging from testing their own bodily fluids to taking an experimental drug.
Brian Hanley, an author on the paper and founder of the one-man biotechnology company Butterfly Sciences, speculates that the self-experimentation rate is even higher. “When I talk to people who are actively involved in biological research… those who were above the age of 40, pretty much all of them have done something,” he says. “Because there’s a bit of a taboo about it, it can be hard to get people to answer honestly unless you’re having an informal conversation and they trust you.”
Motivations behind self-experimentation include wanting to perfect a procedure for future testing, lacking funds or resources to acquire the data another way, needing to get preliminary data in humans to prove that a procedure is safe, and even a desire to receive the treatment oneself.
“Just to get the technologies going, I was the guinea pig. If something goes wrong, it’s easier to test it on me and then work it out before running it on other people.”
As biomedical tests have simultaneously gotten cheaper and more advanced, scientists have become interested in studying how…
