The normals Episode 3

The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals program after church volunteers came to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center—and were surprisingly happy despite going through sometimes-painful procedures. In the decades to follow, the program got bigger as government funding expanded and started to recruit more broadly, stepping away from specific religious groups toward recruiting from colleges, universities, and unions. In this episode, we hear about how normal human subjects experience research today and the ways the normals project influenced oversight and safety for these sometimes vulnerable people. All episodes in this series Appearing in this episode: Laura Stark, history professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University Jill Fisher, professor of social medicine in the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kaviya Manoharan, lecturer and clinical research program manager in the Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre Martin Enserink, deputy news editor at Science Kevin McLean, Science multimedia managing producer Sarah Crespi, Science Podcast senior host and producer Additional resources: BOOKS The Normals: A People’s History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments by Laura Stark Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals by Jill Fisher NEWS STORIES Global effort aims to protect health and safety of human ‘guinea pigs’ in drug trials by Martin Enserink Key global bioethics guidelines get ‘dramatic’ update by Cathleen O’Grady WEBSITES Volrethics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can listen to The normals Episode 3 online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The normals Episode 3 is an episode from Science Magazine Podcast by Science Podcast.

This episode is 33:22 long.

This episode was published on Apr 21, 2026.

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