#7
Post
by barkingmad » Mon Aug 14, 2023 9:05 pm
This month is the 76th anniversary of the publication of the Nuremberg Code.
Not many of us were around then but maybe in the light of events of the last 3.5 years it may be sobering to read the code and to consider whether any of the provisos have been breached recently?
Drafted at the conclusion of a series of trials of Nazi doctors who'd been charged of crimes, including murder and falsifying death certificates on behalf of their employer the German government, the Nuremberg Code was the 20th century's most significant and high profile attempt to articulate specific ethical guidelines to protect patients from systematic abuse by doctors, health care practitioners, and medical systems.
:---"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, overreaching, 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 them 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 them the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon their health or person, which may possibly come from their participation in the experiment.
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.
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 they have reached the physical or mental state, where continuation of the experiment seemed to them to be im- possible
10. During the course of the experiment, the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if they have probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill, and careful judgement required of them, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject."---:
Somehow I doubt as we all queued up, to be stabbed in our upper arms by a redeployed burger-flipper, there was little time to study the conditions specified in that document as part of our fully informed consent...
However, the sharp-eyed amongst us might like to spot and report any contraventions of the code of which they may be aware, either by personal experience or by any form of news meeja?
