Sadistic Medical Experiments

For example, in the years 1918 to 1922, research led by Dr. Leo L. Stanley at California’s San Quentin State Prison caused prisoners to be exposed to many experiments, such as getting transplanted testicles from recently dead prisoners or receiving “transplanted sex organs from rams, goats, and boars” (Krans). However, it seems that prisoner testing became more valuable around the time of War World II (1939-1945) because there were more cases on record. During the war, the Nazi doctors would do fatal experiments on prisoners without their consent (“Research with Prisoners”). For instance, Luftwaffe in 1942 did research on on hypothermia (Frater). One experiment happened when prisoners were put in a “tank of ice water for up to three hours” (Frater). Another one was when prisoners were left “naked in the open for several hours with temperatures below freezing” (Frater). These inmates were frequently told that the experiments were to help the German military

The art of medicine and curing diseases was not always approached in a scientific way. In fact, many advances occurred between 1919 to 1939, after technological advances allowed scientists to apply the scientific method to medical research. At this time, the ethics of using patients as test subjects either for new medicines or as samples for further testing were not considered. An extreme example of this was the Nazi’s using concentration camp inmates – including children – to run painful and invasive experiments. More modern examples are not so easy to identify as unethical, however. While amputating a leg to develop methods to deal with fractures and war wounds is obviously unethical, harvesting cells to develop a vaccine is not so clear cut, as the disadvantage to the patient is hard to identify. Coming from the various Nazi testing and especially the Nuremberg testing and trials, another code of ethics was developed, called the Nuremberg Code.

Holocaust prisoners left, together, in cold dark water for hours at a time. Were their punishments for nothing? Or did their suffering somehow help us today? Between the years of 1939 and 1945, also known as the Holocaust; the Nazi’s took test subjects from groups of people to perform procedures and experiments on. Unfortunately, all of these so-called “important tests” were exceptionally inhumane. A few examples of the procedures performed were leaving prisoners in freezing cold water for three hours straight or only allowing them to drink pure ocean water for two weeks straight. For the most part, what those German doctors did was unnecessary due to the fact that the outcome was highly predictable. But over the course of the intense studies, a few valid and useful tidbits of information did surface. Some of the research findings from Nazi medical testings during the Holocaust continue to benefit today's modern medical development.

As part of the trials of those performing the medical experiments the Nuremburg Code was developed. Much of the code remains part of the ethical code of medical research today. Informed consent of participants and experimentation only for the good of society are in place today because of the Nuremburg Code. Today there are also “scientifically qualified personal” (Benedict & Georges, 2006, p.278) standards for those performing the experiments. During the time of the Holocaust the German medical teaching community also developed a “model of medical school affiliated with research universities” (Rubenfeld, 2011, p.517) that has become the model for many prestigious medical schools around the world. While many were horrified by what had been going on in Germany during the Holocaust, today the medical research community utilized the lessons to protect medical research participants and to ensure medical research practices meet acceptable

For example, the British Army tested on the Irish and the natives to see the effects of mustard gas on different skin colors. The United States tested infectious diseases on the army by contaminating them via injection. None of these incidents brought upon changes in laws or regulations. Only one main research abomination caused a set of rules to be established. It was 1947; German doctors conducted experiments on the concentration camps’ population. Experiments were often deadly or highly debilitating. After the war was over, these doctors were prosecuted. These trials came to be known as the Nuremberg Trials which allowed for the Nuremberg Code to be created and enforced world-wide. This code states that any subject who participates in an experiment must give voluntary consent and that it is absolutely essential for any medical trial to continue. This was a break-through in moral codes. However, in this day and age we still manage to see researchers finding loop holes in order to bypass this code. More scrutiny of testing rules must be applied.

One camp that hitler established was Sachsenhausen, which is a concentration and experimentation camp. This camp was one of the earliest camp to be established, July 1936, and it was “to hold political prisoners that opposed the Nazis”(Concentration Camps). Between 1936 and 1945, 200,000 people passed through this camp. “About 100,000 inmates died there from exhaustion, disease, pneumonia from the freezing winter cold”("Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg): History & Overview). Many were died from brutal medical experimentations or they were executed because they were suffering too much. Some experimentations they did there was, they infected people with epidemic jaundice, killing them or caused great pain and suffering, and another experimentation

The proof is that there was a trial for German physicians who conducted these human experiments on concentration camp prisoners which were prosecuted as war criminals. Until now, the society still continue to discuss if it is acceptable in the medical community to consider the medical research data that were collected during these experimentations. Even some of these experiments had legitimate scientific purposes, the methods used violated the canons of medical ethics. Others were racial in nature, designed to advance Nazi racial theories. Most were simply bad science. Additionally, some believe there are major ethical problems with using the data collected in this unethical manner. Once a decision to use the data has been made, experts suggest that it must not be included as ordinary scientific research, just to be cited and placed in a medical journal. I agree with author Robert J. Lifton who suggested that citation of the data must contain a thorough expose' of exactly what tortures and atrocities were committed for that experiment. Citations of the Nazi data must be accompanied with the author's condemnation of the data as a lesson in horror and as a moral aberration in medical science. The author who chooses to use the Nazi data must be prepared to expose the Nazi doctors' immoral experiments as medical evil. I suggest that if I was a judge that time, I had most definitely torture the Germans in the same way as they tortured Jewish people. According to the philosophy written by Richard Matthews inside the book entitled "The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must be Prohibited," he said “ It's a comprehensive refutation of the arguments in favor of torture, including act and rule utilitarianism, as well as "dirty

The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was created to make guidelines to protect human subjects from harm in projects and experiments in 1979; this was the Belmont Report (Shutt, p. 67). Horrendous acts such as the Tuskegee Experiment (African American subjects who had or were given syphilis were unknowingly not cured and then monitored by researchers for the U.S. Public Health Services starting from the 1930’s until the early 1970’s) (Gamble, p. 1773) and the Milgram Experiment (people were told by a “person in a lab coat” (researcher) to test the memory of other “subjects” (portrayed by actors), and if an incorrect response were given then a shock was administered to the “subject” in which the level of shock would increase each time a wrong answer was given until a lethal shock was administered under orders from the “person in a lab coat”) (Shutt, p. 64 – 65). were allowed until the Belmont Report was created. The Belmont Report set three basic principles to safeguard subjects. These are: respect for persons (making sure all patients’ autonomies (of any capacity) are protected), benefice (minimal harm with maximum benefits), and justice (balancing harm and risk in all aspects of the experiment/project) (Shutt, p. 67).

The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr.

Throughout WW2, the Nazis conducted many experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps. The experiments were extremely brutal to the persons being experimented on. Many of these doctors used their authority to justify the means of their “research”. There are various different experiments that were conducted for supposed benefit to the German army. Experiments conducted by Nazis were inhumane and traumatizing to those lucky enough to survive.

Throughout history, prisoners have been used for many cruel and immoral scientific and medical experiments. For example, during World War II there were many human experiments done on prisoners by Nazi Germany in concentration camps. As a result of this cruel treatment and the Nuremberg Trials, the Nuremberg Code was put into place. The Nuremberg Code states that informed consent is required when doing any type of human experimentation and these experiments should not be conducted when there is a reason to believe that it implies a risk of death or injury. But according to Annas and Grodin, “Nuremberg Code extended no further than the boundaries of the wartime Third Reich. The Nuremberg Code has never been "used in a criminal case" and at best

One of the main issues is whether or not it is ethically sound to use the results of the medical research that the Nazi’s conducted during World War II; there is much debate on this topic, with some saying that the research should not be used because most of the experiments were not well designed, which would result in data that is valueless. Others argue that although the data may have value, it is not ethical to use it because of the horrible ways in which the data was obtained. (Skolnik, 2016, p. 84). Another lesson that can be imparted from the occurrences of the Holocaust is the need for some type of regulation on a global scale of the research and medical practices taking place all over the world; although this is a very complicated and difficult practice, and although the vast majority of researchers would never commit such atrocities, if researchers such as Josef Mengele are left to carry out any experiments and procedures that they wish, the consequences could be terrible. Research cannot be carried out unchecked; there have to be ethical guidelines in place and these guidelines have to be enforced in some

Bioethics was enforced following negative events such as conducting research experiments on humans by Nazis.

Throughout the ages, many experiments have been performed on willing and unwilling participants. Some experiments happened to be non-harming, while others caused much distress, pain, and sometimes death to the subjects. Human experimentation today has greatly transitioned due to past experiences for the better of the participants. Some of the past experiments that brought upon the changes in laws and standards were the Little Albert Experiment, Stanford Prison Experiment, human vivisection, and the Tuskegee Experiments. Safety has become the major concept in the laws for human experimentation due because of many experiments in the fields of medical and psychological studies. With the standards in experimentation

During WWll in German concentration camps many Jewish people were experimented on. It was a very painful experience for them. Thousands died as a result. Each of the doctors that were performing these unethical experimentations were put on trial for what they had done after the war was over. This lead to new regulations and ethical boundaries in the medical field. Most of the doctors were trying to cure diseases and solve some kind of problem. Some of the doctors did the experimentations because they took joy from it or they were trying to prove the superiority of German people over others.