We all are aware of the Nuremberg trials, a post war tribunal which condemned and sentenced Nazi war criminals for crimes against humanity. What most individuals would not be aware of is it implemented an ethic guideline for modern medical researchers to follow. The instructions set by the event would impact medicine, the Hippocratic Oath to be exact, the oath was message for medical professionals to uphold humane standards. The Oath did not have any mention of consent by a patient, this issue lasted until the Nuremberg trials. This modification directly came from the experimentation by Nazi scientists on unaware Jews. The research conducted by German scientist was absolutely deplorable, as mentioned “research on Jews without consent-sewing
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Chester Southam a virologist furthered his studies with injecting cancer cells into live patients without their official say. Multiple examples of this are shown “he didn’t tell the patients the cells were cancerous because he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary fear.”(130). Southam deliberately withheld information which was vital for the patient to know, all to expand his research. One could certainly point to the ruling set in 1947 but most researchers would Southam included say they were not aware of it. It was not taught in American medical universities, thus widely ignored until later cases. As more cases piled evading this guideline become more difficult, a case in 1957 resulted in a physician being sued due to leaving his patient paralyzed. The future was plagued with the same results, it was not until sometime around 1965 NIH officially set laws which set ethic requirements which included consent. This did not hinder scientific growth but help farther speed up breakthroughs, the Nuremberg trials played an important role in shaping medicine to become more humane. The lessons learned played a vital role in progress we see today, if had not been for this event and the debate on it leading to NIH official say than doctors and scientists of the western world would be no different from the
Chester Southam a virologist furthered his studies with injecting cancer cells into live patients without their official say. Multiple examples of this are shown “he didn’t tell the patients the cells were cancerous because he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary fear.”(130). Southam deliberately withheld information which was vital for the patient to know, all to expand his research. One could certainly point to the ruling set in 1947 but most researchers would Southam included say they were not aware of it. It was not taught in American medical universities, thus widely ignored until later cases. As more cases piled evading this guideline become more difficult, a case in 1957 resulted in a physician being sued due to leaving his patient paralyzed. The future was plagued with the same results, it was not until sometime around 1965 NIH officially set laws which set ethic requirements which included consent. This did not hinder scientific growth but help farther speed up breakthroughs, the Nuremberg trials played an important role in shaping medicine to become more humane. The lessons learned played a vital role in progress we see today, if had not been for this event and the debate on it leading to NIH official say than doctors and scientists of the western world would be no different from the