Super-Soldiers Revisited: The Ethics of Using Military Personnel as Research Subjects

A fascinating topic that has not been recently revisited by bioethics is the ethics of human experimentation within the military context, in keeping with the pace of modern technology development. Many research innovations stem from military research, where emerging technologies are first applied in the field then eventually repurposed for civilian contexts. This commentary presents an ethical framework for the usage of military personnel as research subjects, within the context of modern military research such as epigenetic technology development in soldiers. Tensions are raised between existing military versus civilian bioethical frameworks for human experimentation and compared to risk-benefit assessments within and beyond the military context. A harmonized ethical framework is proposed for the use of research subjects within the military. The pace of modern scientific research, particularly in genomics, poses new ethical considerations of genetic profiling, consent, risk, and data privacy that urges a timely revisit of military bioethics.