00:01
So modern medical ethics,
according to some people, begins around World
War II during the war crimes trials in Nuremberg.
00:09
Several points were brought up as results
of those trials; we call these the Nuremberg
code, 10 points in particular that were quite
stressed. One was quite prominent however
and that was, voluntary consent of a human
subject is absolutely essential. You can't
conduct medical research on a person without
them allowing you to do so, that was the Nuremberg
code's most important finding and recommendation.
The problem with the Nuremberg code though
is that it does not have the force of law,
it's a guideline that countries are free to
follow and recommended to follow. Also one
interpretation is that the code argues that
you can risk a subject's life so long as the
investigator is also subjecting him or herself
to the same risk. Then came the declaration
of Geneva, this is also in the postwar period,
so the World Medical Association redrafted
the famous Hippocratic oath to be more relevant
for a modern era, for modern ethics. And there
are 11 tenets the declaration of Geneva,
again the most important one is, "I will
not use my medical knowledge to violate human
rights and civil liberties, even if someone
is threatening me."