The aim of this essay is to investigate the ethical issues that permeated the carbohydrate experiment that was going on at Vipeholm's hospital for "uneducable insane" in Sweden. The material about the experiment is taken from Elin Bommenel's dissertation The Sugar Experiment: The Caries Experiments 1943–1960 at Vipeholm Hospital for the Insane. To create understanding, Beauchamp and Childress´s four ethical principles, which are used as ethical guidelines in health care, were used in the analysis of the experiment. The four principles are the principle of nonmaleficence, the principle of respect for autonomy, the principle of beneficence and the principle of justice.

The analysis based on the four principles showed that the Vipeholme experiment is complex to understand as Beauchamp and Childress's principles provided a picture of the research which from many aspects cannot be seen as ethically correct. From other aspects, however, some elements can be supported by Beauchamp and Childress. The researchers had the task of investigating caries that would successfully help many people. Based on the principle of beneficence, one could imagine that the researchers acted correctly, but had no respect for the patients' autonomous decisions. The two principles are then in conflict with each other, something that critics of Beauchamp and Childress point out as a shortcoming.