The recent news that selected patients are to be placed in suspended animation without their consent has far-reaching implications. In order to test a new experimental procedure for the first time, Doctors at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh will try to save the lives of 10 victims of gun and knife wounds by placing them in suspended animation.

The procedure involves replacing the patient’s blood with a cold saline solution in order to slow down cellular activity. It’s exciting news from the cutting edge of medical science, but also raises some troubling questions about our thirst for immortality and our willingness to overlook issues such as patient choice in the process.

We spoke to American philosopher and sociologist, Steve Fuller, to find out what such news says about our relationship with medical science.

What does a story such as this say about research ethics?

The story highlights two rather opposite things at once: on the one hand, the overriding societal value placed on the extension of life, such that you can violate research ethics codes when one is on the verge of death, to allow that person to undergo treatments that would otherwise be prohibited; on the other hand, the story also underscores the excessive restrictiveness of the research ethics codes already in existence. It seems that you have to be on the verge of death with no other treatment available to be allowed to become involved in risky experiments that offer the promise of something more.