The atrocities committed by Nazi physicians and researchers during World War II prompted the development of the Nuremberg Code to define the ethics of modern medical experimentation utilizing human subjects. Since its enunciation, the Code has been viewed as one of the cornerstones of modern bioethical thought. The sources and ramifications of this important document are thoroughly discussed in this book by a distinguished roster of contemporary professionals from the fields of history, philosophy, medicine, and law. Contributors also include the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal and a moving account by a survivor of the Mengele Twin Experiments. The book sheds light on keenly debated issues of both science and jurisprudence, including the ethics of human experimentation; the doctrine of informed consent; and the Code's impact on today's international human rights agenda. The historical setting of the Code's creation, some modern parallels, and the current attitude of German physicians toward the crimes of the Nazi era, are discussed in early chapters. The book progresses to a powerful account of the Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg, its resulting verdict, and the Code's development. The Code's contemporary influence on both American and international law is examined in its historical context and discussed in terms of its universality: are the foundational ethics of the Code as valid today as when it was originally penned? The editors conclude with a chapter on foreseeable future developments and a proposal for an international covenant on human experimentation enforced by an international court. A major work in medical law and ethics, this volume provides stimulating, provocative reading for physicians, legal professionals, bioethicists, historians, biomedical researchers, and concerned laypersons.
Michael Alan Grodin, M.D., is Professor of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, where he has received 20 teaching awards, including the Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Grodin is Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Grodin is Director of the Project on Medicine and the Holocaust at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies. He completed his B.S. degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his M.D. degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, his postdoctoral and fellowship training at UCLA and Harvard, and he has been on the faculty of Boston University for the past 34 years.
Dr. Grodin is the Medical Ethicist at Boston Medical Center and for thirteen years served as the Human Studies Chairman for the Department of Health and Hospitals of the City of Boston. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, served on the board of directors of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research and the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science. He was a member of the National Committee on Bioethics of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Professor Grodin served on the Ethics Committee of the Massachusetts Center for Organ Transplantation, was a consultant to the National Human Subjects Protection Review Panel of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Program Advisory Committee, and is a consultant on Ethics and Research with Human Subjects for the International Organizations of Medical Sciences and the World Health Organization. He is a member of the Ethics Review Board of Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Grodin is the Co-Founder of Global Lawyers and Physicians: Working Together for Human Rights, Co-Director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights: Caring for Survivors of Torture, and has received a special citation from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in recognition of his "profound contributions - through original and creative research - to the cause of Holocaust education and remembrance." The Refugee Center which he Co-Directs received the 2002 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project for "sensitivity and dedication in caring for the health and human rights of refugees and survivors of torture." He is a Member of the Global Implementation Project of the Istanbul Protocol Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and an Advisor to UNESCO. Dr. Grodin was the 2000 Julius Silberger Scholar and is an elected member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the American Psychoanalytic Association. Four times named one of America's Top Physicians, he has received 4 national Humanism in Medicine and Humanitarian Awards for "integrity, clinical excellence and compassion", "outstanding humanism in medicine and integrity as a faculty member" and "compassion, empathy, respect and cultural sensitivity in the delivery of care to patients and their families."
Dr. Grodin has delivered over 600 invited regional, national, and international addresses, written more than 200 scholarly papers, and edited or co-edited 6 books: ''The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation'' and ''Children as Research Subjects: Science, Ethics and Law'' of the Bioethics Series of Oxford University Press, a book in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Series of Kluwer Academic Press entitled ''Meta-Medical Ethics: The Philosophical Foundations of Bioethics'', and three books published by Routledge: ''Health and Human Rights: A Reader,'' selected as second of the top ten humanitarian books of 1999, ''Perspectives on Health and Human Rights,'' and ''Health and Human Rights in a Changing World.'' Professor Grodin is presently working on a new book titled ''Jewish Medical Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps During the Holocaust.'' Dr. Grodin's primary areas of interest include: the relationship of health and human rights, medicine and the holocaust, and bioethics.
