Ross Halpin

A Matter of Concern: the Ethical Dilemma of Using Nazi Medical Research Data Ross Halpin

More than sixty years after the terrible crimes and grossly unethical practices of Nazi medicine occurred, the research data from that period is still being cited and used and unethical medical research is still being conducted. This text is an investigation of how the German medical and scientific community, the most advanced and sophisticated of the 19th and early 20th century, arrived at a point at which the discipline lent inspiration and an aura of scientific legitimacy to acts of state-sponsored racial cleansing and abhorrent human experimentation. The question under investigation is whether the research data from the experiments should be used in contemporary research. Central to the argument is an oral history where 32 physicians and scientists currently in practice with research qualifications have responded to a series of questions related to the use of Nazi data. The conclusions are enlightening and thought provoking bringing one to question the relevance of the place of ethics in modern medical and scientific research. The book will be useful to students of bioethics, medical and scientific researchers and Holocaust historians.