Monday, February 06, 2012

Today's interesting fact has to do with Medicine

The Nuremberg codes are ethical codes that were set up to prevent a repeat of the human experimentation that occurred during WW2 on German Prisoners.

There are ten points in all, and as defined by the United States National Institutes of Health the first one is

1) The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him/her to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

I thought I'd bring this up, because in some countries, this consent has recently been neglected, perhaps because it currently only applies in those countries that have added it to their legal codes.  In the US, apparently, it only applies to Federally funded research, unless you live in California or any other state that have passed the code into law.

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