Scientists Use Their Own Children as Test Subjects

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Pawan Sinha and Deb Roy also have used their children to fuel their research ambitions.

Sinha attached a camera to his newborn child's head to capture the child's point of view for an experiment, while Roy placed video cameras and microphones throughout his home to follow his son's daily activities.

Center for Research Integrity Director Robert M. Nelson told the Times such research actions are questionable at best as they can bring about an "unpredictable" situation.

"Once that parent becomes an investigator, it sets up an immediate potential conflict of interest," said Nelson, whose center is located at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. "And it potentially takes the parent-child relationship and distorts it in ways that are unpredictable."

Deb Roy, at M.I.T., embedded 11 video cameras and 14 microphones in ceilings throughout his house, recording 70 percent of his son’s waking hours for his first three years, amassing 250,000 hours of tape for a language development study he calls the Human Speechome Project.

Jonas Salk injected his children with his polio vaccine. Clarence Leuba, a psychologist, wondering if laughter in response to tickling was learned or innate, forbade tickling of his infant son and daughter, except when he tickled them, wearing a mask to hide his expression.