According to the
Hippocratic oath:Using the Medical Data is Wrong
According to the
Hippocratic oath:
"I will neither treat any patient nor carry out any research on any human being without the valid informed consent of the subject or the appropriate legal protector thereof, understanding that research must have as its purpose the furtherance of the health of that individual. Into whatever patient setting I enter, I will go for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief or corruption and further from the seduction of any patient." 1
All of these experiments are completely against this medical code of ethics that was created.
http://members.tripod.com/nazi_medical/pictures.html
The Nazis violated this oath in a foul way and for many people, to use this data would be immoral and a sign of disregard for human life. If we sanction this use of this data it could set a standard for how we view human experimentation. If we simply ignore the way these results were collected, it would show people that there is no regard for human lives that have been lost.
"To declare the use of the Nazi data ethical, as some of the American scientists and doctors advocate, would open a Pandora's box and could become an excuse for any of the Ayatollahs, Kadafis, Stroessners, and Mengeles of the world to create similar circumstances whereby anyone could be used as their guinea pig."2
Using this data could in the long run lead to a revamp of what happened in the concentration camps. Survivors of these horrible experiments say that what has been done to them should be a lesson for the rest of the medical world that wishes to use this information. Using this data would make any resulting work tainted and would always carry the stigma of having been discovered through the use of tainted data. Consenting to the use of this data would only validate what the Nazis did, saying that harming human beings is okay so long as we get something useful out of it. Con we really go back to the position of turning the other cheek that we adopted during the war? To use this data would be turning our cheek to the suffering of many that occurred while we were soundly sleeping. "Their actions were clear, direct violations of both the Hippocratic Oath as well as the public's belief that doctors always look after their patients' well-being."3
Many scientists and doctors believe that this data is flawed or unrealistic and therefore not scientifucally sound because of the original bias against the various prisoners. It would be unethical to use the data that was found through purposeful human torture. The prisoners were malnurished and over worked. They were not in any condition to undergo the trecherous experiments. The condition of the prisoners would make the data flawed because these people could not be expected to react the same way a normal healthy person would. Since this was the case the data would be of little use when trying to find out how the average person would react to these various experiments. "Dachau researchers failed to record such basic information as their subjects' body temperatures, how long they were immersed or the type of heat sources used to rewarm them. They did not accurately record abnormal heart rhythms and failed to mention rhythm disorders that are now recognized as common causes of hypothermia death. Some of the temperature data appears to have been fabricated to support a pet theory of Himmler's that cooling occurred faster if the victim's head and neck were immersed in ice water, the new report said. The Dachau report also stated that brain swelling and hemorrhage were common complications of hypothermia. In fact, studies have established that the brain shrinks during cooling and that bleeding rarely occurs." 4
1. - http://members.tripod.com/nktiuro/hippocra.htm - the ancient and modern versions of the Hippocratic Oath
2. - Robert Jay Lifton, author of The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/
3. - Lauren Howell, in "Nazi Medical Experiments: Murder or Research?" - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/
4. - Susan Okie "Nazi Medical Experiments Called a Scientific Fraud" The Washington Post
http://members.tripod.com/nazi_medical/pictures.html
The Human Radiation Experiments - Speculation abou the U.S. using Nazi data during the Cold War
Ethical Accusations: The Loss of Common Sense - Talks about the ethics of human experimentation in prisions
Patients' bill of rights act - The bill of rights passed after the nuremburg trials
Ethics of using Nazi data - An article covering the question of using nazi medical research
Seattle Times- Nazi medical experiment survivors sue three German companies that benefited from the reaserch
