I think this was partially addressed in my comment response to the C Elegens post, but I will add to that with this:

If they're genuinely suicidal they wouldn't be healthy members of society for long, as they would kill themselves. The idea presented provides a chance to both improve current tech - with potentially faster and more effective results since they are human minds and bodies and we could more directly see different effects of revitalization, which may not be the case with the animal progression of testing - and ideally reduce the amount of death, even if by a little.