Experimenting on oneself is subject to an extreme form of the observer's effect, when the observer becomes the observed. Self-observation is not only, as philosophers of science put it, "theory-laden," but also heavily influenced by the subject's mood and yesterday's diet.
One might assert that self-experimentation represents only a minor current in research and as such poses little threat to the overall quality of biomedical science. However, self-experimentation is a special case of much more widespread research involving single subjects.
Single-subject studies, such as a widely publicized attempt to use baboon bone marrow for AIDS treatment involving a single patient, named Jeff Getty (see story on page 3), represent a seriously flawed scientific methodology. Consequently, the results of all single-subject studies are bound to be erroneous.
Do the errors matter? After all, every result obtained during the process of a scientific inquiry has an error attached to it, because the ...
