Ethics of the Nuremberg Code Essay - 1065 Words

From 1946 to 1947, the Nuremberg War Crime Trials took place, withfifteen of twenty-three German physicians and research scientist-physicians found guilty of criminal human experimentation projects. The trial court attempted to establish a set of principles of human experimentation that could serve as a code of research ethics. The result was the Nuremberg Code, which attempted to provide a natural law-based set of universal ethical principles. Looking beyond the Nuremberg Code and applying it to modern medical research ethics, there are many challenges that it poses. Many have argued that the Code tries to provide for all unforeseen events, which restricts the researcher by requiring him to anticipate every situation, demanding the†¦show more content†¦Hence, a proxy was given to those who did not have legal capacity allowing researchers to expand their population for experimentation. The term informed has also been criticized because sometimes even the researcher is not aware of the risks associated with the experiment or they are too technical for the subject to understand. Thus scientists have argued that only adequate information should be released to the patient and a full understanding is not necessary. In this clause, responsibilities are placed on the individual who is initiating, directing, or engaging the experiment but there is no place for the researcher to be reviewed for his actions. The scientist is in full control of making any necessary ethical deliberations. The Declaration of Helsinki added a clause stating experimental protocols should be transmitted to a specially appointed independent committee for consideration and comments. The third principle of the Code addresses the justification of the performance of the experiment based on previous studies done on animals. This may be challenged because the researcher cannot always guarantee success of the experiment even though it has been successful on animals or in previous studies. Uncertainties in the experiment will always be present. The Declaration of Helsinki does notShow MoreRelated10 Principles Regaarding Ethical Clinic and Set of Guidelines on Clinical Research1071 Words   |  5 PagesNuremberg Code is a set of 10 sophisticate principles regarding ethical clinical research on human being (Grodin, 1994). 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