What is the Nuremberg Code?
Annas: The Nuremberg Code is a judicial formulation of the legal guidelines for experimentation on human beings. It grew out of the Nuremberg Doctors Trial, which was an American trial of the Nazi doctors after World War II. It’s a 10-point code, and the most famous point is the first, which requires the informed, voluntary consent of the research subject and gives the subject the right to withdraw at any time. Why is that relevant today? Does it have legacies that influence modern medical practice? Annas: Yes. One legacy is that informed consent has become an absolutely essential legal and ethical guideline for both therapy and experimentation. And the doctor-patient relationship has changed markedly because of the code. Prior to Nuremberg, people argued that doctors could be trusted with the power they had. After Nuremberg, it was clear that the patient should be the one to decide who could be trusted and who had the legal right to decide to take part in research or therapy. It was a
