Nuremberg Code
Introduction:
The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation set as a result of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War. The "doctors' trial" was the first of the war crimes trials. The trial was officially titled United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al., but is more commonly referred to as the "Doctors' Trial"; it began on December 9, 1946. The Doctors Trial lasted 140 days. The first tenet of the code is very clear: "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential." Today, the Nuremberg Code is the most important influence on U.S. law governing human medical research.
OBJECTIVES OF DOCTOR'S TRIAL
The trial was conducted for:
• Freezing,
• Malaria,
• LOST Gas,
• Sulphanilamide,
• Bone, Muscle and Nerve Regeneration
• Bone Transplantation,
• Sea-Water,
• Epidemic Jaundice,
• Sterilization. and
• Typhus Experiments.
COURT DISCUSSION
On August 19, 1947, the judges delivered their verdict in the "Doctors' Trial" against Karl Brandt and several others. They also delivered their opinion on medical experimentation on human beings. Several of the accused had argued that their experiments differed little from pre-war ones. But there was no law that differentiated between legal and illegal experiments.
JUDGEMENT
After hearing 85 witnesses and examining 1,471 documents that were presented, judgment was pronounced on August 19, 1947 with sentencing following on the next day. Of the 23 defendants, 7 were sentenced the death by hanging (carried out at Landsberg Prison), 9 were given prison terms, and 7 were found not guilty, were involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder. Joseph Mengele "Angel of death" , one of the leading Nazi doctors, had evaded capture.
INDICTMENTS
• Count one à the common design or conspiracy
• Count two à war crimes
• Count three à crimes against humanity
• Count four à membership in criminal organization schutzstaffel
A. Defendants got death
• Karl Brandt : Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Viktor Brack: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Rudolf Brandt: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Karl Gebhardt: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Waldemar Hoven: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Joachim Mrugowsky: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
• Wolfram Sievers: Death, Charged for 1,2,3,4.
B. Defendants got imprisonment
1. Hermann Becker-Freyseng
2. Wilhelm Beiglböck
3. Fritz Fischer
4. Karl Genzken
5. Siegfried Handloser
6. Herta Oberheuser
7. Helmut Poppendick
8. Oskar Schröder
9. Gerhard Rose
C. Dfendants got acquit
• Adolf Pokorny
• Hans Wolfgang Romberg
• Paul Rostock
• Kurt Blome
• Siegfried Ruff
• Konrad Schäfer
• Georg August Weltz
PRINCIPLES NUREMBERG CODE 1947
The 10 points are, (all from United States National Institutes of Health)
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him/her to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is a prior reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
Reprinted from Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Vol. 2, pp. 181–182. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. Note that complete electronic copies of the Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg [Nuremberg] Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10 are available online, as are most of the other proceedings from the Nuremberg Trials.
OTHER ATROCIUS TRIALS
In the Book Medical Apartheid documents many cases.
1. In 1994, the Medical of South Carolina in Charleston was accused of enrolling poor black women into narcotic-treatment research without their knowledge.
2. The next year in Los Angeles, an experimental measles vaccine was tested on children, mostly black and Hispanic, without their parents' consent.
3. In 1994 and 1995, New York City law enforcement officials helped researchers coerce black parents into enrolling their boys into a study that sought to establish a genetic propensity for violence, again without their consent
Summary:-
As a direct result of the trial, the Nuremberg Code was established in 1948, stating that "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential," making it clear that subjects should give consent and that the benefits of research must outweigh the risks.
Although it did not carry the force of law, the Nuremberg Code was the first international document which advocated voluntary participation and informed consent.
References:-
1. World Medical Association. Medical Ethics Manual. The Ethics Unit of the World Medical Association: France. 2005.
2. Baruch C. Cohen. The ethics of using medical data from Nazi experiments. 2008 [online]. Available from http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html: [Accessed on 12 January 2008].
3. The Nuremberg Code (1947) In: Mitscherlich A, Mielke F. Doctors of infamy: the story of the Nazi medical crimes. New York: Schuman, 1949: xxiii-xxv. Also available online from http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/nuremberg
4. Reprinted from Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Vol. 2, pp. 181-182. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949.
VIJIT AGARWAL, B.Pharma, (Pharm.D.)
JSS College of Pharmacy,
JSS University, Mysore-15
Karnataka
Web Address-http://www.pharmahunt.blogspot.com
# 08892233843
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