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Cal. Health & Safety Code § 24171

Human Experimentation

Known as the Protection of Human Subjects in Medical Experimentation Act

The act spans §§ 24170–24179 (12 sections).

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Perez v. Nidek Co. (2013)

Most recently applied in Perez v. Nidek Co. (March 2013)

Added by Stats. 1978, Ch. 360.

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

The Legislature hereby finds and declares that medical experimentation on human subjects is vital for the benefit of mankind, however such experimentation shall be undertaken with due respect to the preciousness of human life and the right of individuals to determine what is done to their own bodies.

The Legislature further finds and declares that:

(a) The Nuremberg Code of Ethics in Medical Research was developed after the trial of Nazi war criminals for unethical use of persons in medical experiments; subsequently, the Declaration of Helsinki additionally established recommendations guiding doctors in experimentation involving human subjects.

(b) Neither the Nuremberg Code nor the Declaration of Helsinki are codified under law and are, therefore, unenforceable.

(c) It is necessary that medical experimentation be done in such a way as to protect the rights of the human subjects involved.

(d) There is, and will continue to be, a growing need for protection for citizens of the state from unauthorized, needless, hazardous, or negligently performed medical experiments on human beings.

It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature, in the enacting of this chapter, to provide minimum statutory protection for the citizens of this state with regard to human experimentation and to provide penalties for those who violate such provisions.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.