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The Trials Of The Nuremberg

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Values Conflict Paper - Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Doctors Trial of 1946 is the preeminent case recognizing the importance of medical ethics and human rights specifically about human research subjects. The defendants in the trials include Nazi leadership, physicians, and investigators prosecuted for conducting unethical and inhumane medical experiments on civilians and prisoners of war resulting in extreme pain, suffering, permanent injury and often death. The Nuremberg Code, borne of these trials, establishes ethical guidelines for human experimentation to ensure the rights of subjects in medical research. Herein, this writer will first identify and discuss ethical dilemmas presented in the Nuremberg case followed by three …show more content…

Ethical Standards
1.02 Self-Determination
The second subsection of the NASW Code of Ethics is 1.02 Self-Determination. This standard highlights the clients’ right to be involved in the decision making process regarding his/her treatment and care, to include refusing treatment. This standard also speaks to the clients’ understanding that these rights may be limited by the social worker “…when, in the social workers’ professional judgment, clients’ actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others” (NASW website, 2017). Nazi scientists and physicians conducted torturous and human experiments on prisoners of war held in concentration camps throughout Germany. These involuntary experimental subjects were not involved in the decision-making process regarding their treatment and care and were, in fact, “treated” against their will. “Prisoners were forced to drink poisoned water and breathe noxious gases.” (Gambrill, 2004, p. 14). Doctors forcing individuals to participate in clinical trials directly contradicts the ethical standard of self-determination hence the application to the Nuremberg case.
1.03 Informed Consent The third subsection of the NASW Code of Ethics is 1.03

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