The Pros And Cons Of Medical Experiment

Do you think that as a human being you should have the say regarding what medical experiments you can or cannot partake in? Usually when someone hears about medical research being piloted on humans there is a presumption that rights of the participants are being protected. However, this was not the case 75 years ago in Nazi, Germany. Throughout World War II, Nazi physicians administered medical experiments on humans in an effort to benefit German forces. As the tests and experiments were being administered many ethical guidelines were overlooked and the rights of the human subjects were left unprotected.
During WWII Adolf Hitler and his Nazi officials used many of the Jewish concentration prisoners as what we would call today as “lab rats”. The tests and experiments conducted were in effort to improve the German race and the endurance and resilience of the soldiers. In Nuremberg a series of test and experiments were carried out without prior consent from the test subjects. Many victims included the mentally retarded, institutionally mentally ill, and physically impaired. Racial experiments, war-injury related, and pharmaceutical testing were a few of the medical experiments piloted.
Among the experiments conducted racial experimentation was the most important because it allowed the Germans to create the “master race” and control the heredity diseases. In search to create the master race sterilization of over 200,000 Germans took place. German physicians took great interest in sterilization because if perfected it would permit Germany to utilize the population in regions it occupied without dreading their reproduction with its consequences of the master race. X-rays and injections were the methods used for the experiment...

... middle of paper ...

...e of the procedure or treatment, the advantages and risk, and potential outcomes of the treatment.
However, the physician must make a reasonable attempt to do so in order for the patient or subject to make an informed decision about treatment. There is the case of an emergency in which the patient does not have to provide consent for treatment.
The Nuremberg has forever changed the lives of all people and how physicians can treat them. It has also changed how medical research can be conducted on human subjects. Even though all the lives that were affected by the German Nazis, physicians, and lawyers cannot be brought back they will forever be known in history as the founding hope that has given all people from many different walks of life a chance to have a say so regarding their bodies and how it medical experiments, treatments, and procedures can used upon it.