MAIMONIDES INSTITUTE FOR MEDICINE ETHICS AND THE HOLOCAUST CORP

The purpose of this webinar is to explore the chronology of the ethical dimensions of human genetics. Beginning with a brief introduction to biology, DNA research, and human genetics, this webinar will review how genetic knowledge was abused in coercive international eugenics programs in the first half of the twentieth century, focusing specifically on the United States and Germany. Present applications of genetic research, including the Human Genome Project, genetic testing and screening, and gene therapy, can be used to investigate the ethical and public policy questions raised by society’s continued quest for progress through genetic manipulation. Genetic enhancement, behavioral genetics, and racial research represent potential future uses of human genetics, begging the question of how society will come to define and understand what it means to be human.

The central role of the medical profession in the design and implementation of “applied biology,” and Racial Hygiene Policy that took place during the Holocaust has broad relevance for a variety of topics within clinical medicine and public policy. This webinar will approach these issues through the lens of Comparative Bioethics. Any individual, group, or national position on the ethical and public policy questions raised by society’s constant desire for progress through medical and scientific advancements depends upon its foundational philosophy. By comparing traditional religious codes of ethics, Hippocratic medical ethics, Nazi bioethics, and contemporary secular bioethics, the different approaches to clinical, research, and public health policy issues can be clarified.

Many scholars have argued that the field of human subject research ethics was created as a direct response to Josef Mengele and the medical experimentation that took place in Nazi concentration camps. While the barbarism disguised as scientific practice that took place during the Holocaust serves as the most egregious example of unethical human subject research, the history of the field demonstrates a host of medical failures that have violated not only the tenets of sound science, but also the personhood of those seeking relief from suffering. This webinar will provide a better understanding of the evolution of human subject research ethics through the examination of several examples of unethical human subject research experimentation both during and after World War II.