Past Issues
The Abuse of Psychiatry and (Psycho) Pharmacology in Nazi Regime and the Nuremberg Trials: Ethical Issues in Human Research
Francisco López-Muñoz, Cecilio Alamo, Winston W. Shen
After World War II, an international military court sentenced 20 Nazi doctors
and 3 collaborators with crimes against the humanity at the Nuremberg Trials. For
the past 70 years after Nuremberg Trials, the restoration to pre-Nazi’s ethical standard
has been progressed. The eugenicist theories and the policies of racial hygiene
were the fundamental axes of the Nazi euthanasia programs without paying
attention to the basic ethics of the medicine. German psychiatry that it enjoyed an
extraordinary international reputation, played a capital rôle in these programs and
the mental patients supposed the main group of risk for these practices during the
Nazi era. In this overview, we deal with, the historical perspective of the euthanasia
programs of the mental patients, and the procedures for its execution, and the
use of the mental patients as investigation tools. Direct consequence of the mentioned
penal process gave birth to the Nuremberg Code, which has been considered
as the fi rst international code of ethics for the medical experiments with human
subjects. During the last 70 years, it has advanced substantially in the
restoration of ethical codes and norms to protect patients in particular in the fi eld
of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, and its culmination of advancement has
been in the 1996 Declaration of Madrid.
and 3 collaborators with crimes against the humanity at the Nuremberg Trials. For
the past 70 years after Nuremberg Trials, the restoration to pre-Nazi’s ethical standard
has been progressed. The eugenicist theories and the policies of racial hygiene
were the fundamental axes of the Nazi euthanasia programs without paying
attention to the basic ethics of the medicine. German psychiatry that it enjoyed an
extraordinary international reputation, played a capital rôle in these programs and
the mental patients supposed the main group of risk for these practices during the
Nazi era. In this overview, we deal with, the historical perspective of the euthanasia
programs of the mental patients, and the procedures for its execution, and the
use of the mental patients as investigation tools. Direct consequence of the mentioned
penal process gave birth to the Nuremberg Code, which has been considered
as the fi rst international code of ethics for the medical experiments with human
subjects. During the last 70 years, it has advanced substantially in the
restoration of ethical codes and norms to protect patients in particular in the fi eld
of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, and its culmination of advancement has
been in the 1996 Declaration of Madrid.
| Key Word | history of psychiatry, psychopharmacology, psychiatric research, medical ethics |
|---|