Nazi human experimentationNazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on prisoners by Nazi Germany in its concentration camps mainly between 1942 and 1945. There were at least 15,754 documented victims from a variety of nationalities and age groups, although the plurality were young adults at the time of the experiment. Although most victims survived, many suffered disability as a result. Nazi physicians and their assistants forced prisoners into participating; they did not willingly volunteer and no consent was given for the procedures.
Unethical human experimentationUnethical human experimentation is human experimentation that violates the principles of medical ethics. Such practices have included denying patients the right to informed consent, using pseudoscientific frameworks such as race science, and torturing people under the guise of research. Around World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany carried out brutal experiments on prisoners and civilians through groups like Unit 731 or individuals like Josef Mengele; the Nuremberg Code was developed after the war in response to the Nazi experiments.
Human subject researchHuman subject research is systematic, scientific investigation that can be either interventional (a "trial") or observational (no "test article") and involves human beings as research subjects, commonly known as test subjects. Human subject research can be either medical (clinical) research or non-medical (e.g., social science) research. Systematic investigation incorporates both the collection and analysis of data in order to answer a specific question.
Nuremberg CodeThe Nuremberg Code (Nürnberger Kodex) is a set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in U.S. v Brandt, one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War. Though it was articulated as part of the court's verdict in the trial, the Code would later become significant beyond its original context; in a review written on the 50th anniversary of the Brandt verdict, Jay Katz writes that "a careful reading of the judgment suggests that [the authors] wrote the Code for the practice of human experimentation whenever it is being conducted.
Medical ethicsMedical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal.
Doctors' TrialThe Doctors' Trial (officially United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.) was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany, after the end of World War II. These trials were held before US military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms at the Palace of Justice.
Declaration of GenevaThe Declaration of Geneva was adopted by the General Assembly of the World Medical Association at Geneva in 1948, amended in 1968, 1983, 1994, editorially revised in 2005 and 2006 and amended in 2017. It is a declaration of a physician's dedication to the humanitarian goals of medicine, a declaration that was especially important in view of the medical crimes which had just been committed in German-occupied Europe. The Declaration of Geneva was intended as a revision of the Hippocratic Oath to a formulation of that oath's moral truths that could be comprehended and acknowledged in a modern way.
Declaration of HelsinkiThe Declaration of Helsinki (DoH, Helsingin julistus, ) is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association (WMA). It is widely regarded as the cornerstone document on human research ethics. It is not a legally binding instrument under the international law, but instead draws its authority from the degree to which it has been codified in, or influenced, national or regional legislation and regulations.
Unit 731, short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China, formerly named Manchuria) and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
VivisectionVivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experimentation on live animals but the term is rarely used by practising scientists. Human vivisection, such as live organ procurement, has been perpetrated as a form of torture.
