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Doctors Gone Bad

Doctors Gone Bad. Human Subject Experimentation (WW II – the present) Torturers Murderers and Despots Martin Donohoe. “When a doctor [goes] wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.” - Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle. Nazi Medicine.

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Doctors Gone Bad

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  1. Doctors Gone Bad Human Subject Experimentation (WW II – the present) Torturers Murderers and Despots Martin Donohoe

  2. “When a doctor [goes] wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.” - Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle

  3. Nazi Medicine • Guiding philosophy = Hegelian (rational utility) • Social Darwinism - parallels in American and British Eugenics Movement • medical journals relatively silent • Ethics reduces morality to efficiency, economics, and aesthetics

  4. Nazi Medicine • An arm of state policy • Focus on racial purity • from eugenic sterilization (370,000) • to involuntary euthanasia (70,000) • to large-scale genocide (over 6 million)

  5. Nazi Medicine • Individual worth stated in economic terms; propaganda re obligations to the state • “I Accuse” • “Mathematics in the Service of Political Education”

  6. Nazi Medicine • Doctoring the nation more important than doctoring individuals - Nazism as “applied biology” (Rudolph Hess) • Focus on preventive medicine and public health: anti-tobacco and anti-alcohol campaigns, environmental toxins, organic farming -to improve Aryan stock • Nazi soldiers given anabolic steroids to increase aggressiveness • cf. professional athletes doping

  7. Nazi Physicians • 52,000 physicians • National Socialist Party Members • Jews ostracized; replaced by young Aryans • today 0.2% of German physicians are Jews, c/w 17% pre-Nazis • 5% of non-Aryans committed suicide; 25% murdered

  8. Nazi Physicians • Economic hard times, physicians salaries rise, academic perks • Blutkitt (“blood cement”) • Rare resistance • Catholics • Marxists • Dutch

  9. Nazi “Physician-Researchers”(Torturers) • Dr. Sigmund Rascher - coagulation/amputation studies; hypothermia experiments • Dr. Karl Gebhart: heteroplastic transplantation experiments • c.f. Stalin’s attempts to create interspecies (half-men/half-apes) “super-warriors” • 2016 – US govt. plans to lift moratorium on funding of certain types of chimeras

  10. Nazi “Physician-Researchers”(Torturers) • Drs. Karl Clausberg and Viktor Brack: X-irradiation/sterilization • Drs. Joachim Mrugowsky, Erwin Ding-Schuler, and Waldemar Hoven: IV phenol and gasoline executions

  11. Nazi “Physician-Researchers”(Torturers) • Dr. Friedrich Wegener (“Wegener’s Granulomatosis”): German pathologist, Nazi party member, autopsied a prisoner with oxygen injected into his bloodstream in an embolism study; may have participated in experiments on concentration camp inmates

  12. Nazi “Physician-Researchers”(Torturers) • Dr Hans Conrad Reiter (formerly “Reiter’s Syndrome”, now “reactive arthritis”): senior Nazi official • Dr. Joseph Mengele: Septicemia/twin vivisection studies • Dr. Hans Eppinger – water deprivation experiments, “father of modern hepatology”

  13. “Indirect Participants” • Prof. J Hallevorden: “Look here now, boys, if you are going to kill all these people at least take the brains out so that the material could be utilized … the more (brains) the better….I accepted these brains of course. Where they came from and how they came to me was really none of my business.”

  14. Doctors and Resistance • German invasion of Poland (1939) • Drs Eugene Lazowski and Stanislaw Matulewicz created a fake typhus epidemic, using a harmless bacterium to innoculate non-Jews, knowing that infected Jews would be summarily executed • Germans fooled, quarantined area, many Jews escaped death

  15. Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial • 23 German physicians tried • 16 found guilty • 7 hanged (incl. Gebhardt, Brack, Hoven, and Mrugowsky)

  16. Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial • Rascher died before trial • Mengele fled for Argentina (remains verified 1985) • Hallevorden committed suicide before trial • Otto Ambros (chemist) – invented sarin (nerve gas), convicted of mass murder at Nuremberg Trials, later freed and worked with US chemical industry on thalidomide

  17. Nuremberg Code • Voluntary consent is absolutely essential • Avoidance of unnecessary physical and mental suffering • Option to quit/responsibility to terminate • Other safeguards

  18. Declaration of Geneva • “I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient” • “I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity.” • “It is unethical for physicians to employ scientific knowledge to imperil health or destroy life.”

  19. Declaration of Helsinki • Patients’ rights to respect, self determination, informed decision-making • Investigators’ duties: primacy of subjects’ welfare, ethical considerations take precedence over laws and regulation • Allows for surrogate consent

  20. Federal Policy for Human Subject Protection (Common Rule) Undergoing Revisions • Recommendations: • Studies must not violate domestic and international laws • Voluntary consent absolutely essential • Address special problems and needs of developing countries • Provide treatment and compensation for research-related injuries • US must wait sovereign immunity and other procedural obstacles regarding developing country studies

  21. Japanese Abuses in WW II • Extensive biological and chemical weapons program involving prisoners of war • Over 10,000 doctors and researchers involved (led by Shiro Ishii, Chief Medical Officer of the Imperial Japanese Army)

  22. Japanese Abuses in WW II • “Experiments:” • Deliberate infections with plague, cholera, typhoid, anthrax, and TB • Testing of drugs and vaccines not previously tested in animals • Surgeries (for training purposes) without anesthesia, followed by vivisection/death • Detonation of bombs, followed by vivisections • Number of victims unclear, likely in six figure range • Subjects referred to as maruta (“logs”)

  23. Japanese Abuses in WW II • Many participants later achieved positions of prominence in Japanese medical schools and societies • E.g., Tokyo Prefectural University, Olympic Committee, Green Cross, Japanese NIH, and private sector companies

  24. Japanese Abuses in WW II • U.S. government made secret deal with Ishii and top collaborators - 250,000 yen and immunity from prosecution in exchange for exclusive access to data • Japanese scientists brought to Fort Detrick, MD, to help establish U.S. biological/chemical weapons program • Unclear if Ishii went to Ft. Detrick or stayed in Japan; may have opened children’s clinic, converted to Christianity prior to death in 1967 • U.S. has never apologized for protecting these war criminals

  25. Post-WW II • Over 700 Nazi rocket scientists and their families brought to the U.S. (including Werner von Braun) to help build nuclear missile program • Operation Paperclip

  26. U.S. Immigration Policy • U.S. government excluded Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from coming to the U.S. in the 1930s; turned SS St. Louis with 900 Jewish refugees back from Miami )1/3 later murdered by Nazis)

  27. U.S. Immigration Policy • Immigration quotas on “undesirables” throughout 20th and 21st Centuries (except when needed for dangerous labor) • Current limits on refugee resettlement, attitudes towards Latinos and Muslims

  28. Post-WW II • German Medical Association unanimously issues blunt, straightforward apology for its role in the Holocaust (2012)

  29. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • James Ketchum (psychiatrist), L Wilson Green (scientist), Van Murray Sim – psychochemical warfare studies for US Army • Ketchum later joined faculty of University of Texas Medical School

  30. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation:Tuskegee Syphilis Study • Longitudinal study of untreated syphilis in almost 400 African-Americans • Sponsored by USPHS • Racist assumptions that syphilis behaved “differently” in Blacks

  31. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation:Tuskegee Syphilis Study • Mid-1940s: Penicillin accepted as treatment for all stages of syphilis • By 1972: 28 had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 wives had been infected, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis

  32. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation:Tuskegee Syphilis Study • 1972: Newspaper reports condemn; study ends • 1970s: Participants and families compensated by federal government • 1997: President Clinton formally apologizes

  33. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation:Tuskegee Syphilis Study • “The men’s status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical material, not sick people.” • Dr John Heller, Director of Venereal Diseases at PHS between 1943 and 1948 (interviewed in 1976)

  34. Studies on Native Americans • Sterilizations • Radioactive iodine to study adaptation of thyroid gland to extreme cold • Forced removal of children to English language, religious schools (c.f., Australia, Canada) • Distrust and reluctance of minorities to participate in medical research

  35. Research on Prisoners • Very common historically (infectious diseases, radiation, pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs) • 1905: cholera experiments on “volunteers” • 1915: Joseph Goldberger – pellagra studies • Prisoners pardoned or paroled in exchange for participation • 1941: Physician William Black infects children with herpes virus, paper published by J Peds • WW II: gonorrhea, gas gangrene, dengue fever, malaria

  36. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Pharmaceutical and government sponsored studies on prisoners • 1940s and 1950s esp. • Halted in mid-1970s after drug company executives admitted prisoners were cheaper to use than chimpanzees • Of note, in 2015, the NIH announced its intention to end use of chimpanzees in biomedical research

  37. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Guatemala STD study (1946-8) • U.S. researchers deliberately infected 1,308 prisoners, military conscripts, prostitutes, orphans (provided by Sisters of Charity), and mental health patients with gonorrhea and syphilis • Scientists treated 87% of those infected (10% later required re-treatment), lost track of 13%

  38. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Guatemala STD study (1946-8) • Wives, children, and grandchildren treated, but sexual contacts not traced • Study approved by Guatemalan government • Received material for resource-starved institutions in return • Subjects received cigarettes for participating

  39. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Guatemala STD study (1946-8) • U.S. apologized (2010), has pledged $1 million to study research ethics, $775,000 to fight STDs in Guatemala • Class action lawsuit against U.S. government filed on behalf of 700 victims/relatives (2011)

  40. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Guatemala STD study (1946-8) • Dr. John Cutler (research coordinator): “Unless the law winks occasionally, you have no progress in medicine” • In 1943, Cutler infected volunteer federal prisoners in Indiana with gonorrhea in exchange for cash

  41. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Guatemala STD study (1946-8) • After Guatemala, Cutler oversaw the Tuskegee Syphilis Study • Was acting dean at University of Pittsburgh in 1960s

  42. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • University of Minnesota malaria study (1940s) • Drs. Thomas Francis, Jr. and Jonas Salk infect psychiatric hospital residents with influenza (?if consent adequate?)

  43. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Atlanta, Alabama, and Terre Haute prison gonorrhea studies (1940s and 1950s) • Study evaluating effects of antibiotics on growth rate (1950s, Navy recruits, mentally disabled, Guatemalan schoolchildren) • Patuxent prison Asian flu experiment (1957)

  44. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • U.S. govt.-sponsored radiation experiments (e.g., Strong Memorial Hospital/University of Rochester (NY), Dr Wright Langham) • LSD/sensory-deprivation/electroshock investigations (CIA - MK Ultra)

  45. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Pentagon/CIA experiments on soldiers and civilians • Edgewood Arsenal Experiments (involving more than 7,000 soldiers who were exposed to at least 250 biological and chemical agents) • Including sarin, VX, LSD, ritalin • Caused long-term health effects • Deliberate release of Serratia over San Francisco Bay; radioactive cadmium over St. Louis

  46. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • 1963: Dr. Chester Southam injects tumor cells into extremely infirm patients at Jewish Hospital for Chronic Disease in NY without informing them that the shots contain cancer cells • Southam later elected President of American Association for Cancer Research

  47. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Willowbrook Hepatitis Experiments (1960s) • Pre-WW1: Joseph Goldberger’s pellagra experiments on Mississippi prisoners • Henry Beecher, NEJM (1966) – documented numerous published studies involving ethical breeches (e.g., non-treatment of strep-infected patients, manipulations under anesthesia, deliberate injection of cancer cells into healthy patients) • little public attention when researchers unmasked in 1991

  48. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Sterilization programs (70,000 victims in U.S.) • Native Americans • Buck v. Bell (USSC, 1927) • WI, NJ, CA, IN, NC, OR, others • Alabama’s Governor Graves vetoed law in 1930s law citing “hazard to personal rights” • Oregon governor Kitzhaber apologized in 2002 for the over 2500 state-forced sterilizations that occurred between 1917 and 1983 • 2012 – NC to compensate victims

  49. Post-WW II Human Subject Experimentation • Iowa elementary school race experiment (1968; good or bad?) • Milgram’s obedience studies (1963); Milgram redux (2008) • Soviet psychiatry • US military/pharmaceutical vaccine and medication trials in the developing world

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