Contemporary clinical trials encompass the evaluation of novel treatments, medical devices, and drugs on human subjects, necessitating informed consent. Physicians play a vital role in obtaining participants' consent for such experiments. However, in earlier times, the concept of obtaining consent was absent, leading to the exploitation of prisoners of war by Nazi doctors during the Second World War (specifically from 1942-1945) through unethical clinical trials, an abhorrent affront to human dignity.
During World War II, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to "purify" German society of people who were considered a biological threat to the "health" of the nation. The Nazis recruited doctors and medically trained geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists to develop racial health policies. Nazi doctors carried out up to 30 painful and often deadly experiments on concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Due to this victim suffered indescribable pain, disfigurement, permanent disability, or, in many cases, death. This chain of medical experiments is infamously known as the 'Nazi Experiments'.
Some of these experiments had legitimate scientific objectives, although the methods used violated the principles of medical ethics. Others were racist and planned to promote Nazi racial theories. Most of it was just bad science. Here are some of the immoral experiments:
1. High Altitude Experiment
In 1942, Nazi doctors wanted to figure out how best to rescue German airmen stranded at high altitudes, so they placed the prisoners in low-pressure chambers which simulated very high altitudes (up to 68,000 feet above sea level) and monitored their physiological response as they succumbed and died. Later it became clear that doctors dissected the brains of the victims while they were still alive, to show that altitude sickness is caused by the formation of small air bubbles in the blood vessels of a certain part of the brain.
2. Freezing Experiment
Doctors conducted freezing experiments to determine the most effective means of treating German pilots who had crashed in the ocean or German soldiers suffering from extreme exposure on the Russian front. For up to five hours, they placed victims in icy water either in flight suits or naked. They took the others out into the cold and tied them up naked. While the victims rolled over in pain, foamed at the mouth, and lost senses, doctors noted changes in victims' heart rate, body temperature, muscle reflexes, and other factors. When the prisoner's body temperature descended to 79.7 degrees, doctors tried to rewarm him with warm sleeping bags, and skull baths, and even naked women were forced to mate with the victim for the same.
3. Sulfanilamide Testing
Concentration camp doctors conducted studies testing the effectiveness of sulfanilamide and other drugs in controlling such infections to benefit the German army, whose front-line soldiers suffered greatly from gas death, a type of progressive necrosis. This was carried out by causing battleground-like wounds to the bodies of the victims, infecting them with bacteria such as streptococcus, tetanus, and poisonous gases. Doctors made the infection worse by rubbing the wound with glass and wooden shavings and tying blood vessels on either side of the wound to simulate what would happen in a real war wound. The victims suffered severe pain and severe injuries, and some of them died as a result.
4. Twins Experiment
To find ways to reproduce the German race more efficiently, scientists conducted experiments on twins, hoping to discover the secrets of multiple births. After taking body measurements and other important data of the selected twins, doctors sent them through a single injection of chloroform into the heart. Out of about 1,000 pairs of twins tested, only about 200 pairs survived.
5. Poison Testing
Concentration camp scientists developed a unique method of execution by injecting Russian prisoners with phenol and cyanide. Experimenters also tested various poisons on the human body by excreting harmful chemicals into the prisoners' food or shooting the prisoners with poison bullets. Victims who did not die during these experiments were killed so that the experimenters could perform autopsies.
6. Tuberculosis Tests
Doctors injected live tuberculosis bacilli (the bacteria that are the main cause of tuberculosis) into the lungs of concentration camp inmates to determine whether people had a natural immunity to tuberculosis. About 200 adult test subjects died and 20 children were hanged to hide evidence of the experiments from the approaching Allies.
7. Phosgene Experiment
In the quest to find out an antitoxin to phosgene, a poisonous gas used as a weapon during the First World War, Nazi researchers exposed 52 concentration camp inmates to the gas. Phosgene causes severe irritation in the lungs. Many of the prisoners, who were already weak and undernourished according to German statements, suffered from pulmonary edema after the exposure, four of them died during the experiments.
8. Bone, muscle and joint transplantation
Experimenters would amputate the legs and shoulders of prisoners as they tried to transfer them to other victims to see if a limb or joint from one person could be successfully attached to another limb or joint that had lost that limb or joint. They also took out parts of bones, muscles, and nerves from victims to study the regeneration of these body parts. Victims suffered excruciating pain, disfigurement, and permanent disability as a result.
9. Sterilization
Doctors conducted experiments on men and women to find an effective way to sterilize millions of people with as little time and effort as possible. They irradiated the genitalia of young men and then castrated them to study changes in their testicles. Corrosive substances were pushed into one woman's cervix or uterus, causing excruciating pain, bleeding, and stomach cramps. Thousands of those sterilized suffer immense mental and physical pain.
10. Artificial insemination
About 300 women underwent artificial insemination at the hands of doctors who mocked the victims strapped in front of them, telling the women that they had just been inseminated with animal sperm and were now growing monsters inside their bellies.
11. Sea water Experiment
To conduct experiments on drinking seawater, doctors forced about 90 prisoners to drink only seawater while depriving them of food. Victims were so dehydrated that they licked the floors after sweeping to get a drop of fresh water. The experiments caused severe pain and suffering and resulted in major bodily injuries.
A doctor's role in life is like an angel who saves us from terrible diseases and gives us life. But events like the 'Nazi Experiments' have shown that these same angels can sometimes take on the form of Satan, and with life-giving hands, can lead people straight into the abyss of death and immense pain.
What happened after 'Nazi Experiments'?
"Doctors' Trial of Nuremberg” was conducted in the aftermath of the discovery of the camp experiments and subsequent trials to address abuses committed by medical professionals during the Holocaust. In this, 23 German doctors were tried, and prosecutors found 15 accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity; seven were sentenced to death. This led to the establishment of the ‘Nuremberg Code’ which included the principle of informed consent and required standards for research.
References:
1. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-nazi-medical-experiments
2. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-medical-experiments
3. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiside.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
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