[gzer0]

> His early fears of having damaged Kennedy for life turned out to be unfounded; the language loss that left his patient briefly locked in was just a symptom of postoperative brain swelling.

While I am glad that there was minimal harm done here, I am perplexed as to why a Neurosurgeon would risk their decades of training and career for such a high-risk low reward surgery. This could have been a terrible ending.

We should be weary about tampering with things we do not completely comprehend.

[prometheus76]

"Wary" means "cautious", as in "beware". "Weary" means "tired".

[pmoriarty]

Self-experimentation used to be a lot more common in medicine.

There's an interesting history of it in a book called Who Goes First?

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Lawrence-Altman/dp/052...

[HWR_14]

One of the two winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine from 2005 (Barry Marshall) gave himself ulcers just to prove he understood causation and the cure. He and his partner (Robin Warren) in the research won the prize for that treatment.

[saalweachter]

I was told a story about a neuroscience study that involved paralyzing the lead author with curare and manually manipulating his eyeball to study his perception as a result of the manipulation; I was told it was never repeated, although a quick Google to find a reference revealed at least one similar study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232712/), so I guess it's more popular than it used to be.

Another famous one was Werner Forssmann, the first doctor to perform a cardiac catheterization, who performed the operation on himself first (then walked over to the X-ray room to get a picture to prove he succeeded).

[DantesKite]

Thanks for the book recommendation. That one looks very interesting.

[fouc]

He was 66-year old at the time of doing this. He wrote a scifi novel that was an expression of his dream and his drive to make it a reality.

He was fully prepared for a terrible ending. He weighed the risks and rewards, and thought it would be worth it.

And it was.

[fundamental]

As someone who intersected with some of this work, my opinion is that it was likely a consequence of dwindling funding.

[oaktrout]

I have a feeling the surgeon did the surgery because he was in Belize, you can probably get away with more there.

[fundamental]

This was almost certainly the case. It was extremely abnormal that the surgery happened at all.

[Nextgrid]

On the other hand, if someone wants to experiment on themselves, why not let them? Nobody is harmed if it doesn't work, and we can make quick breakthroughs that might be otherwise impossible due to ethics/etc.

[bawolff]

I think its like drugs in sports - in principle you are only risking yourself, but if it becomes normalized you will have to do it no matter how you feel about it or risk getting left behind.

[3np]

Science is (supposed to be) a collaborative effort, not a zero-sum competitive game like sports.

Of course people might get competitive about their careers and feel pressured to stay on top. But the discovery of one researcher should not be to the detriment of others.

[fleetwoodsnack]

Not quite. You’re right that scientific knowledge and career prestige are not zero-sum competitive games, but the competition for scientific funding often is. Anyone who’s sat down to write a grant proposal knows what a struggle it can be to get support for even the most promising research.

If (big if, but it is the topic of the discussion at hand) self-experimentation is increasingly normalized, and through normalization attracts funding, one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support.

Money, the same motivation that pushes athletes to extremes, is not something scientists are immune to, even if the ultimate utility of the money serves different purposes.

[DSMan195276]

> one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support.

Yep, I think the realities of allowing such a thing are quite clear: You can't skip the rats and go straight to a human, but you could skip the rats and go straight to yourself. Having human data at an early stage would be a huge advantage for getting funding, and there would only be one way to get it.

[alach11]

Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe. And people might consider risking their health if they feel it could make/break their career. Better to have a strong stigma against self-experimentation to avoid that.

[pmoriarty]

"Why not let athletes use steroids? It's unsafe."

That's not the reason.

Athletes do unsafe things all the time, with the blessing of their sport. Boxing is unsafe, American football is unsafe, skateboarding is unsafe, skiing is unsafe, extreme sports are unsafe, etc...

The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another.

Such considerations are irrelevant when one's goal is not fair competition but advancement of science.

[DSMan195276]

> The prohibition on steroid use has more to do with fairness and ensuring a level playing field, so no athlete has an unfair advantage over another.

This is somewhat circular logic - it's only 'unfair' because you've defined it that way. IMO the idea that there is a level playing field is somewhat of a myth to begin with, there are plenty of other ways to gain "fair" advantage like better training and nutrition, and access to those things is clearly not equal across all competitors. I think you could probably argue the current situation is less fair than just allowing them considering how many top athletes likely use steroids anyway and just haven't been caught.

That's not to say that I think we should allow steroids in sports, just that "a level playing field" doesn't seem like much of a justification to me. I think the simpler reason is that lots of sports already have rules to make the sport safer for their athletes, and banning steroids/drugs simply falls into that same category because it has a clear risk of spiraling out of control. Yes, sports are unsafe, but they're also generally designed to not be so unsafe that competitors are dying all the time due to going to extreme lengths to try and win.

[Beltalowda]

This is quite a different situation because it creates an uneven playing field: to be competitive you will need to use steroids too. If it only affected the athletes many people wouldn't mind.

[cf141q5325]

Most of the cases where self experimentation becomes a viability are cases like in this article. Where funding doesnt exist. There is no competition because there is no funding for the topic. If he hadnt done it, nobody would have. Also, for some people the aim isnt personal profit but actual progress.

I think your take is overly zealous, if you are really worried you could make it a requirement for grants. Which it already is.

edit: Maybe for a different framing, picture it more like climbing a mountain. You do it because its there, it is that simple. All the rest (sponsorships and the like) is just ways to get funding to get you up there. You were already going to go, more funding just makes it saver. And as unhealthy as it is, i think society should not get involved further as me not dragging anyone else in with me. After all, how is this any worse then eating or drinking myself to death. Or giving myself a heart attack (to come back to professional athletes)

[netizen-936824]

Not all steroids are inherently unsafe, especially the more modern ones. In reality the primary argument against steroids is that "its unfair to those who don't"