Nuremberg Code
The Nuremberg Code is a codification of ethics in human subject research.
Contents
Description
The Nuremberg Code was composed of 10 points.
Informed consent is required
- There must be fruitful results for the good of society
- Human experiments must be based on animal experiments
- Avoid unnecessary harm
- Experiments with an expectation of death or disability are unallowable
- Degrees of risk must be assessed against humanitarian importance
- Preparations must be made to protect subjects from risks
- Experiments must be conducted by scientifically qualified investigators
- Subjects have a right to discontinue the experiment
- Investigators must discontinue the experiment if continuation is likely to result in injury, disability, or death
History
The von Hindenburg administration had codified ethical guidelines for medical research in the 1931 Guidelines for New Therapy and Human Experimentation. The focuses of the guidelines were beneficence and informed consent.
During World War 2, brutal medical experimentation was conducted on prisoners at concentration camps.
The 1947 Doctors' Trial (officially USA v. Karl Brandt, et al) prosecuted the doctors and scientists that conducted these experiments. While held in Nuremberg, the trial was the first of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials heard by a U.S. military tribunal (rather than the International Military Tribunal).
In the process of the trial, a memorandum outlining ethics for human experimentation was produced. This was used as a rubric for judging the defendants.
The Declaration of Helsinki is largely based on this code.