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As of now, the IOM report is not binding, and is being considered by the Health and Human Services department; whether the recommendations will be implemented into government policy is a different issue. "Right now we're just considering," said El-Hinnawy. "It's a very deliberate process; it's impossible to predict when the changes, if there will be."

Although it is unclear whether the report will be implemented at all and if it is, what consequences it may bring, but prisoners and prisoner right advocates are apprehensive and afraid of a reversion to the gruesome human subject trials in the 70's. The Holmesburg trials happened only thirty years ago, and the scars, both internal and external, still remain unhealed. Now it remains to be seen whether the time when human beings were treated as "acres of skin" and exploitation raged in the name of science will return again.