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The Nuremberg Code and Its Impact On Clinical Research

The Nuremberg Code was established following World War II and the Nazi experiments on prisoners. It outlines 10 ethical principles for human experimentation, including requiring voluntary consent and that any experiments must avoid physical and mental suffering. The Code was a result of the Nuremberg Trials where Nazi doctors were prosecuted for their human experiments. It has significantly influenced standards for ethical clinical research and good clinical practice.

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Amrita Singh
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278 views2 pages

The Nuremberg Code and Its Impact On Clinical Research

The Nuremberg Code was established following World War II and the Nazi experiments on prisoners. It outlines 10 ethical principles for human experimentation, including requiring voluntary consent and that any experiments must avoid physical and mental suffering. The Code was a result of the Nuremberg Trials where Nazi doctors were prosecuted for their human experiments. It has significantly influenced standards for ethical clinical research and good clinical practice.

Uploaded by

Amrita Singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Nuremberg Code And Its Impact On

Clinical Research
The Nuremberg Code is one of the most influential documents in the history of clinical
research.

Created more than 70 years ago following the notorious World War II experiments, this
written document established 10 ethical principles for protecting human subjects.

What Is the Nuremberg Code?


When World War II ended in 1945, the victorious Allied powers enacted the International
Military Tribunal on November 19th, 1945. As part of the Tribunal, a series of trials were
held against major war criminals and Nazi sympathizers holding leadership positions in
political, military, and economic areas. The first trial conducted under the Nuremberg
Military Tribunals in 1947 became known as The Doctors’ Trial, in which 23 physicians
from the German Nazi Party were tried for crimes against humanity for the atrocious
experiments they carried out on unwilling prisoners of war. Many of the grotesque medical
experiments took place at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Jewish prisoners were
tattooed with dehumanizing numbers onto their arms; numbers that would later be used to
identify their bodies after death.

The Doctors’ Trial is officially titled “The United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.,”
and it was conducted at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. The trial was
conducted here because this was one of the few largely undamaged buildings that remained
intact from extensive Allied bombing during the war. It is also said to have been
symbolically chosen because it was the ceremonial birthplace of the Nazi Party. Of the 23
defendants, 16 were found guilty, of which seven received death sentences and nine received
prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment. The other 7 defendants were
acquitted.

The verdict also resulted in the creation of the Nuremberg Code, a set of ten ethical principles
for human experimentation.

What Are The Nuremberg Code's Ethical Guidelines For


Research?
The Nuremberg Code aimed to protect human subjects from enduring the kind of cruelty and
exploitation the prisoners endured at concentration camps. The 10 elements of the code are:

1. Voluntary consent is essential


2. The results of any experiment must be for the greater good of society
3. Human experiments should be based on previous animal experimentation
4. Experiments should be conducted by avoiding physical/mental suffering and injury
5. No experiments should be conducted if it is believed to cause death/disability
6. The risks should never exceed the benefits
7. Adequate facilities should be used to protect subjects
8. Experiments should be conducted only by qualified scientists
9. Subjects should be able to end their participation at any time
10. The scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment when injury,
disability, or death is likely to occur

The Significance of the Nuremberg Code


The Nuremberg Code is one of several foundational documents that influenced the principles
of Good Clinical Practice (GCP).

Good Clinical Practice is an attitude of excellence in research that provides a standard for
study design, implementation, conduct and analysis. More than a single document, it is a
compilation of many thoughts, ideas and lessons learned throughout the history of clinical
research worldwide.

Several other documents further expanded upon the principles outlined in the Nuremberg
Code, including the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report and the Common Rule.

Although there has been updated guidance to Good Clinical Practice to reflect new trends and
technologies, such as electronic signatures, these basic principles remain the same. The goal
has always been—and always will be—to conduct ethical clinical trials and protect human
subjects.

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