SOME NOTES ON BIOMEDICAL ETHICS

Medical researchers and practitioners were among the first to become concerned with developing a code of professional ethics. Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) is generally recognized as the founder of Western medicine including its professional ethics. The Hippocratic Oath has been followed by Western medical practitioners through the centuries to this day. It is still used during the graduation ceremonies for medical students at many universities and schools. The pivotal point in this oath is not only to avoid doing any harm, but also to do good--- the physician's responsibility to try to heal the sick and injured.

This pivotal point of the Hippocratic Oath is reflected in subsequent statements on professional ethics in medical and scientific research including the International War Crimes Tribunal Nuremberg Code of 1946, the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki of 1964, and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research Belmont Report of 1979, among many others (e.g., Annas and Grodin 1992, Lifton 1986). For example, the Belmont Report (Ryan 1979:4) includes beneficence as the third of its three basic principles: "Persons are treated in an ethical manner not only by respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm, but also by making efforts to secure their well-being." In other words, for more than 2,000 years since Hippocrates, Western medical ethics, and subsequent research ethics, have involved both avoiding harm and doing good (e.g., Dooley 2001). Also these principles are reflected in various international conventions on human rights of the United Nations (e.g., Mann, et al., 1999).

References Cited

Annas, G.J., and M.A. Grodin, 1992, The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Experimentation, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Avalon Project, 2002 (April 21), The Avalon Project of the Yale Law School (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp10.htm).

Christopher, Paul, 1999, The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction to Legal and Moral Issues, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Cote, William, and Roger Simpson, 2000, Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims and Trauma, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Dickens, Bernard M., 2000, "Can Science or Ethics Compromise Each Other in Human Subject Research?," Science and Ethics, Patricia Demers, ed., Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press/The Royal Society of Canada, pp. 3-23.

Dooley, David, 2001, "Ethics: Protecting Human Subjects and Research Integrity," Social Research Methods, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 16-39.

International War Crimes Tribunal, 1946, Nuremberg Code (Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Nuremberg, October 1946), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, v. 2, pp. 181-182, 1949. (http://www/ushmm.org/research/doctors/Nuremberg_Code.htm, or http://www.med.umich.edu/irbmed/ethics/Nuremberg/NurembergCode.html).

Lifton, Robert Jay, 1986, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, New York, NY: Basic Books.

Mann, Jonathan M., Sofia Gruskin, Michael A. Grodin, and George J. Annas, eds., 1999, Health and Human Rights: A Reader, New York, NY: Routledge.

The Office of Research Integrity (Office of Public Health and Science, Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government (http://ori.dhhs.gov/).

Ryan, Kenneth John, et al., 1979, The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects Research, Washington, D.C.: Department of Health, Education and Welfare/The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (http://ohrp.osophs.dhhs.gov/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.htm).

Staub, Ervin, 1989, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Stenmark, Mikael, 1997, "What is Scientism?," Religious Studies 33(1):15-32.

Wax, Murray, and Joan Cassell, eds., 1979, Federal Regulation: Ethical Issues and Social Research, (American Association for the Advancement of Science Symposium No. 30), Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

World Medical Association, 1964, Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects," (http://www.wma.net/e/policy17-c_e.html).