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Nazi Medical Experimentation:

The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From
Nazi Experiments
by Baruch C. Cohen
Nazi Medical Experiments: Table of Contents |
Photographs | Background & Overview

Following World War II, leading Nazi doctors were brought to justice before the International
Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Twenty doctors were charged with War Crimes and Crimes
Against Humanity. The Nuremberg trial of the doctors revealed evidence of sadistic human
experiments conducted at the Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen
concentration camps.
Since the Nuremberg trials, our society has had to confront the reality that the Nazi doctors
were guilty of premeditated murder masqueraded as research. Professional modern medicine
has had little difficulty condemning the Nazi doctors as evil men. But what is being said of
the continued use of the Nazi doctors' medical research?
Many scholars are now discovering in reputable medical literature multiple references to
Nazi experiments, or republished works of former SS doctors. These studies and references
frequently bear no disclaimer as to how the data was obtained. Several scientists who have
sought to use the Nazi research have stirred soul-searching about the social responsibility and
potential abuses of science. These incidents prompt a number of questions for the scientific
community.
Is it ever appropriate to use data as morally repugnant as that which was extracted from
victims of Nazism? If so, under what circumstances?
- The Ethical Dilemma
- Nazi Experiments
- Proposed Use of Nazi Scientific Data
- Analysis
- Policy Considerations
- Conclusion
- Epilogue

The Ethical Dilemma

This paper addresses the serious ethical problems of using tainted data from experiments on
patients who were murdered and tortured by the Nazis in the name of "research." In
particular this paper will address: the scientific validity of the experiments; the medical
competence of the experimenters; the social utility in using the experimental data; case
studies of proposed uses of the Nazi scientific data; the policy consideration involved when
scientists use immorally obtained data; the condition and guidelines as to how and when the
data is to be used; and the issue from the victims' perspective.
This project was undertaken with the utmost caution. The reader should be aware that the
moral climate in the Jewish community is unforgiving to those who find any redeeming merit

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