THE NUREMBERG CODE 1947

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22 October 2014

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Aryan racial purity Hitler became the Chancellor of the Third Reich in 1933 his National Socialist Party passed a law designed to

improve the Aryan race law allowed physicians to sterilize people who were "in

any way visibly sick or who have inherited a disease and can therefore pass it on”

200,000 to 350,000 people were sterilized due to mental conditions (mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic depressive insanity), epilepsy, Huntington's chorea and hereditary alcoholism, hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, grave bodily malformations and "crippled" states such as club foot, cleft palate and harelip

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Hartheim Castle was a "euthanasia" killing center (Hartheim, Austria)

Between December 1939 and August 1941:

50,000 to 60,000 Germans

children and adults physically and mentally

disabled were secretly killed by lethal injections or in gas chambers designed to look like shower stalls

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Cemetery at Hadamar where“euthanasia” victims were buried

Victims included: 80-100,000 adult mental

patients from institutions 5,000 children in

institutions 1,000 Jews in institutions 20,000 concentration

camp inmates transported to killing centers

70,000 patients gassed 20,000 died of starvation

or due to medication

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Sterilization experiments

March 1941 to January 1945: sterilization experiments were conducted at the Auschwitz

and Ravensbrueck concentration camps purpose: to develop a method of sterilization which would

be suitable for sterilizing thousands of people with a minimum of time and effort

eugenic surgical sterilization (used in the institutions) took too much time and cost too much

sterilization experiments used X-rays, surgery, chemicals and drugs

thousands of victims were sterilized and thereby suffered great mental and physical anguish

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Genocide of non-Aryans & physically and mentally disabled…

A Gypsy at Auschwitz

…by means of extermination and sterilization

• castration by means of x-rays

• medicinal sterilization• caladium seguinum

• chemical sterilization• Jewish & Gypsy women

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Genetic experimentation on twins:Josef Mengele

3000 twins underwent “genetic” experiments only 200 survived

also midgets, dwarf & hunchbacks experimental surgeries without anesthesia; blood transfusions from one to other twin; isolation endurance; injections with lethal germs; sex change operations; organ & limb removals; eye drops to change colour

kill and autopsy both twins

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Eva and Miriam Mozes

The Stern sisters – twin survivors;• later in life, in Israel• founded CANDLES: Children of Auschwitz Nazi

Deadly Laboratory Experiments Survivors• the story of Eva & Miriam Mozeshttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/july-13-2007/holocaust-forgiveness-advocate-eva-kor/3126

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High Altitude experimentsA prisoner in a compression

chamber loses consciousness (and later dies) during an experiment to determine altitudes at which aircraft crews could survive without oxygen

Dachau concentration camp research for the German Air Force to investigate the limits of human

endurance and existence at extremely high altitudes

used a low-pressure chamber in which atmospheric conditions and pressures prevailing at high altitude (up to 68,000 feet) could be duplicated

subjects were placed in the low-pressure chamber; the simulated altitude was raised

many victims died as a result of these experiments and others suffered grave injury

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Dachau Hypothermia Experiments

investigate the most effective means of treating persons who had been severely chilled or frozen

subjects were forced to remain in a tank of ice water for periods up to 3 hours

extreme rigor developed in a short time; many victims died

survivors were subject to rewarming attempts other subjects were kept naked outdoors for many hours

at temperatures below freezing

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Malaria Experiments

February 1942 to April 1945 experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration

camp purpose: to investigate immunization for and treatment of

malaria healthy concentration-camp inmates infected by

mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the mucous glands of mosquitoes

subjects who contracted malaria were treated with various drugs to test their relative efficacy

over 1,000 involuntary subjects were used in these experiments

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Mustard Gas Experiments

September 1939 to April 1945 experiments were conducted in concentration camps for

the benefit of the German Armed Forces to investigate the most effective treatment of wounds

caused by mustard gas wounds were deliberately inflicted on subjects, then

infected with gas

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The Doctors Trial,

held in Nuremberg, Germany, from

9 December 1946 to 20 August 1947

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24 defendants were charged with (1) crimes against peace, (2) war crimes, (3) crimes against humanity, and (4) conspiracy

Representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France acted as prosecutors and judges

• Count #(3) included “medical experiments, without the subjects' consent, upon German civilians and nationals of other countries, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts” http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/three.htm • 12 sentenced to death• 3 sentenced to life imprisonment• 4 sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years• 3 acquitted of charges• 2 committed suicide prior to the trial or before sentencing

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Defendants claimed that “no international law or informal statement differentiated between legal and illegal human experimentation.”

http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/code_expl.htm

Was it permissible to undertake medical experiments on human persons?

“certain types of medical experiments on human beings . . . conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally . . . such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study . . . However . . . certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts” http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/Nuremberg_Code.htm

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THE NUREMBERG CODE 1947

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

legal capacity to give consent able to exercise free power of choice no force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of

constraint or coercion sufficient knowledge and comprehension to make an understanding and

enlightened decision• nature, duration, purpose of experiment• method & means of its conduct• inconveniences and hazards reasonably expected• effects upon health or person from participation

personal responsibility for ensuring voluntary consent rests on every individual person involved in conducting the experiment

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http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/irb/irb_appendices.htm#j5

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 an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects

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http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/irb/irb_appendices.htm#j5

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.

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http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/irb/irb_appendices.htm#j5

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 seemed 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.