Nuremberg Code:
1. This code was drafted in August 1947 following the Nuremberg trials and established the principles of autonomy and informed consent within the biomedical research context. While this code established international precedence, the reality of the situation was that these principles unfortunately did not prompt the American medical community to re-evaluate their ethos on vulnerable populations, like prisoners. The American medical community claimed it was a, “good code for barbarians, but an unnecessary code for ordinary physician-scientists” (Hornblum, "Acres of Skin" xvi).This double standard is quite apparent as the community was quick to crucify the actions of the Nazi doctors, but these same judgment standards were not applied for their experiments in the United States.
2. Allen Hornblum asserts, “We harangued and executed Nazi doctors for experiments…but at the same time we found it justifiable to inject hospital patients plutonium without their consent, and to observe hundreds of poor, black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama, as they withered away from syphilis while withholding effective treatment” (Hornblum, "Acres of Skin" xviii). During the Nuremberg trials, Dr. Ivy, the prosecution’s main witness, testified, “it is not an evil to carry out experiments. In fact, if practiced as in the U.S., medical experimentation is a noble, scientific endeavor and in no way related to the Nazi horrors.” The principles that developed following these Nuremberg trials (listed below) were circulated internationally, but one will see that its enforcement and implementation was not evident in the American medical community. Following World War II, “human experimentation had been legitimized and prisoners had become the guinea pigs of choice for score of inspired researchers” (Hornblum, "They Were Cheap and Available." 1413).
2. Allen Hornblum asserts, “We harangued and executed Nazi doctors for experiments…but at the same time we found it justifiable to inject hospital patients plutonium without their consent, and to observe hundreds of poor, black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama, as they withered away from syphilis while withholding effective treatment” (Hornblum, "Acres of Skin" xviii). During the Nuremberg trials, Dr. Ivy, the prosecution’s main witness, testified, “it is not an evil to carry out experiments. In fact, if practiced as in the U.S., medical experimentation is a noble, scientific endeavor and in no way related to the Nazi horrors.” The principles that developed following these Nuremberg trials (listed below) were circulated internationally, but one will see that its enforcement and implementation was not evident in the American medical community. Following World War II, “human experimentation had been legitimized and prisoners had become the guinea pigs of choice for score of inspired researchers” (Hornblum, "They Were Cheap and Available." 1413).