Clinical Research and the Mentally Ill
Samantha Gobright
Dr. William Kringel
Mental Health and the Law
17 April 2014
Protecting the Vulnerable
“The Experiments chronicled in the Nuremberg trials were carried out for various reasons. Physicians forced people to drink seawater to find out how long a man might survive without fresh water. At the Dachau concentration camp, Russian prisoners of war were immersed in icy water to see how long a pilot might survive when shot down over the English channel and to find out what kinds of protective gear or rewarming techniques were most effective… at Auschwitz, physicians experimented with new ways to sterilize or castrate people as part of the plan to repopulate Eastern Europe with Germans. Physicians’ preformed limb and bone transplants (on people with no medical need) and... injected prisoners’ eyes with dye to see if eye colour could be permanently changed.”
The excerpt above is from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code a book recording the unimaginable horrors as millions of innocent men, women, and children were used for clinical research. They were treated worse than animals and the book shows how their sacrifices ultimately changed the course of history. Today’s research ethics are, in essence, ways to ensure vulnerable subjects are protected from exploitation and other forms of harm like the gruesome medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors during World War II. Shortly after the conclusion of WW II an international trial of war criminals began in Germany known now as the Nuremburg Trials. These preceding’s included the “Doctor’s Trial” from December 1946 to August 1947 in which twenty-three defendants were accused of crimes against humanity, focusing on medical experiments done to prisoners of war (Staff). A prime example, was the starvation of the mentally and physically handicapped, coined as “useless eaters,” it became official policy of the state after the prolonged exposure to Nazi hate campaigns against the mentally and physically
Dr. William Kringel
Mental Health and the Law
17 April 2014
Protecting the Vulnerable
“The Experiments chronicled in the Nuremberg trials were carried out for various reasons. Physicians forced people to drink seawater to find out how long a man might survive without fresh water. At the Dachau concentration camp, Russian prisoners of war were immersed in icy water to see how long a pilot might survive when shot down over the English channel and to find out what kinds of protective gear or rewarming techniques were most effective… at Auschwitz, physicians experimented with new ways to sterilize or castrate people as part of the plan to repopulate Eastern Europe with Germans. Physicians’ preformed limb and bone transplants (on people with no medical need) and... injected prisoners’ eyes with dye to see if eye colour could be permanently changed.”
The excerpt above is from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code a book recording the unimaginable horrors as millions of innocent men, women, and children were used for clinical research. They were treated worse than animals and the book shows how their sacrifices ultimately changed the course of history. Today’s research ethics are, in essence, ways to ensure vulnerable subjects are protected from exploitation and other forms of harm like the gruesome medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors during World War II. Shortly after the conclusion of WW II an international trial of war criminals began in Germany known now as the Nuremburg Trials. These preceding’s included the “Doctor’s Trial” from December 1946 to August 1947 in which twenty-three defendants were accused of crimes against humanity, focusing on medical experiments done to prisoners of war (Staff). A prime example, was the starvation of the mentally and physically handicapped, coined as “useless eaters,” it became official policy of the state after the prolonged exposure to Nazi hate campaigns against the mentally and physically
Cited: Annas, George J and Michael A. Grodin. The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print. Brown MD, Walter A. Psychiatric Times: The Placebo Effect . 01 October 2006. Website. 16 April 2014. . Comission, National Bioethics Advisory. Research Involoving Persons with Mental Disorders That May Affect Decision-Making Capacity . Washington, DC, 1998. Report. . Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects ( 'Common Rule '). n.d. Website. 12 April 2014. . "Informed Consent in Adult Psychiatry." Oman Medical Journal 13 April 2013: 228-231. Medical Article. . Michaels, R. "Are research ethics bad for our mental health?" New England Journal of Medicine (1999): 1427-1430. Journal Article . Miller, Franklin G and Donald L Rosenstein. "Psychatric Symptom-Provoking Studies: An Ethical Appraisal." Biological Psychology. Elsevier, 1997. 403 - 409. Print. Sergens Medical Dictionary. 2011. website. 16 April 2014. . Staff, History.com. History.com. 2010. Website. 4 April 2014. . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . n.d. Website. 28 March 2014. .