In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, ethicists, researchers, and journalists have recommended studies that deliberately infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus as a scientific means of expediting vaccine development. In this essay, we trace the history of infection challenge experiments and reflect on the Nuremberg Code of 1947, issued in response to brutal human experiments conducted by Nazi investigators in concentration camps. We argue that the Code continues to offer valuable guidance for assessing the ethics of this controversial form of research, with respect particularly to the acceptable limits to research risks and the social value of research necessary to justify exposing human participants to these risks.

In 1936, the American Neurological Association (ANA) published the book \"Eugenical Sterilization: A Reorientation of the Problem\" in response to what the first author of the book described as a positive reception to a paper presented at the ANA\'s 1935 annual meeting. The conclusions of the presentation were approved by the organization during the same meeting. As evidenced by the publication of several book reviews in a variety of medical journals, the book garnered some attention.
Reviews of the ANA\'s book were sought using PubMed, Google Scholar, and Embasa. Also, the book\'s title was used to search the World Wide Web.
The search yielded four reviews, all published in 1937. The reviews make evident a positive opinion of the ANA\'s book\'s authors\' recommendations including the option for \"selective sterilization\" of patients with conditions such as Huntington disease, Friedreich ataxia, and epilepsy. In addition, reviewers highlighted the book\'s authors\' assessment that \"the feebleminded [breed] docile, servile, useful people who do the dirty work of the race, [as] servants fulfilling a social function.\"
Although the book\'s authors did not advocate for all-out eugenical sterilization, they did little to counter the popular opinion that patients with certain neurological diseases were a drain on society. In addition, they espoused a positive vision of the feebleminded\'s role as servants who can do undesirable work. This message was disseminated through book reviews.

There is substantial published evidence showing that countless people enroll each year in ethically deficient clinical trials. Many of the trials are problematic because the quality of the science used to justify their launch may not be sufficiently vetted while many other trials may lack requisite social value. This poses the question: why do people volunteer for them? The answer resides in large part in the fact that informed consent practices have historically masked, rather than disclosed, the information that would alert research candidates to the ethically problematic nature of the trials. The \"reasonable person\" and \"key information\" provisions in the revised US Common Rule create the opportunity to correct this historical shortcoming. Two sources are employed to shed light on what the \"key information\" is that should be disclosed to a \"reasonable person\": the original disclosure aims of the Nuremberg Code, as well as an extensive body of meta-research evidence. Those sources jointly support a range of new disclosures in the informed consent process that would unmask the heretofore undisclosed information. The resulting proposed new disclosures pertain to the overall success prospects of clinical trials, the quality of the prior research that both forms the basis of clinical trials and informs assessment of their risks and benefits, the potential social value of clinical trials, and the commercial purposes of clinical trials.

In clinical medicine, the moral obligation to care for the individual patient is absolute. Patient care means at least and by negative terms to minimize any risk of treatment. In this context, the question arises about the compatibility of clinical ethics and human biomedical research ethics. Or conversely, is there a common ground between the two? At the opposite end of the field between clinical ethics and biomedical research ethics is the proposal of an obligation to participate in biomedical research, which is argued for on the basis of biomedical knowledge being a public good available to the community as a whole. While patient accrual during a clinical investigation would certainly be facilitated by obligatory research participation, and the data obtained would be-at first sight-more representative for the population studied, the still feasible refusal to participate would be stigmatizing and as such detrimental for the patient-physician relation. This essay seeks to provide a reply to the titled question by focusing on aspects such as individual vs common medical claims, shared grounds between the two and an important document of medical research ethics, that is the Nuremberg code.

In 2010, in an article in this journal, I argued that declassified documents implicated Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) physicians in the conduct of unethical research on enhanced interrogation using detainee subjects. The focus, then as now, is upon physicians at the Office of Medical Services (OMS). The 2010 article highlighted the heavily redacted \"Draft OMS Guidelines on Medical and Psychological Support to Detainee Interrogations\" (the Draft). This commentary focuses upon the recently declassified final version of that document revealing further culpable evidence of unethical human subject research. The commentary locates that unethical research in historical context and the development of the Nuremberg Code. The commentary also locates enhanced interrogation in contemporary political context and considers how to hold OMS physicians accountable for the conduct of unethical human research using detainee subjects.

In 2008 a group of former soldiers of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) sued the Ministry of Defense and others, claiming they had suffered from medical problems that resulted from an IDF medical experiment in which they had participated in the 1970s. There was no compelling medical evidence with respect to causal relationships between their participation in the experiment and their later medical problems. The President of the District Court, Justice Hila Gerstl, appointed me, with the consent of the parties, to write a deposition with respect to the ethical aspects of the case. My comments in the sequel rest on my deposition, applying not only to the case that had been under discussion but also to each and every case of experimentation. My arguments, strictly confined to the ethical aspects of the case, as opposed to the legal aspects and the debated facts, were not in favor of either party. As a result the state and the former soldiers reached an agreement approved by the court. One of the major points made in that deposition is that the Nuremberg and Helsinki principles follow from those of medical ethics in general, except for the requirement to have an Institutional Review Board (IRB). A second major point is that under very strict conditions, more than what is usually required, soldiers may participate in medical experiments administered by their military force. However, new conscripts during their first months of their service should not take part in medical experimentation within their military force.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices among healthcare professionals in Barbados in relation to healthcare ethics and law in an attempt to assist in guiding their professional conduct and aid in curriculum development.
METHODS: A self-administered structured questionnaire about knowledge of healthcare ethics, law and the role of an Ethics Committee in the healthcare system was devised, tested and distributed to all levels of staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados (a tertiary care teaching hospital) during April and May 2003.
RESULTS: The paper analyses 159 responses from doctors and nurses comprising junior doctors, consultants, staff nurses and sisters-in-charge. The frequency with which the respondents encountered ethical or legal problems varied widely from \'daily\' to \'yearly\'. 52% of senior medical staff and 20% of senior nursing staff knew little of the law pertinent to their work. 11% of the doctors did not know the contents of the Hippocratic Oath whilst a quarter of nurses did not know the Nurses Code. Nuremberg Code and Helsinki Code were known only to a few individuals. 29% of doctors and 37% of nurses had no knowledge of an existing hospital ethics committee. Physicians had a stronger opinion than nurses regarding practice of ethics such as adherence to patients\' wishes, confidentiality, paternalism, consent for procedures and treating violent/non-compliant patients (p = 0.01) CONCLUSION: The study highlights the need to identify professionals in the workforce who appear to be indifferent to ethical and legal issues, to devise means to sensitize them to these issues and appropriately training them.

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