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To test how to treat phosphorus burns, doctors
at Ravensbruck concentration camp applied a mixture of phosphorus and rubber to
inmates' skin, ignited it, and let it burn for 20 seconds.
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What if you knew that many in the medical and scientific communities consider
the Nazi experiments bad science?
Those who judge the Nazi experiments poor science cite several reasons. First,
drawn as they were from the death camps, experimentees were usually
malnourished, emaciated, and severely weakened, and thus their physiological
responses to the experiments would likely be different from those of normal,
healthy people. Second, Nazi doctors had political aspirations and sought
results that supported Nazi racial theories. Third, the data were never
replicated and, in an ethical world, can never be replicated. Finally,
soaked with the blood of their victims, the experiments were morally tainted,
which renders them scientifically invalid. For these reasons, many dismiss the
experiments as pseudoscience.
"[The experiments were] a ghostly failure as well as a hideous crime ... [They]
revealed nothing which civilized medicine could use."
—Brigadier General Telford Taylor, chief counsel for the prosecution at
Nuremberg "Doctors Trial," 1946-47
[5]
"Injecting a half-starved young girl with phenol to see how quickly she will die or trying out various forms of
phosgene gas on camp inmates in the hope of finding cheap, clean, and
efficient modes of killing so the state can effectively prosecute genocide is
not the sort of activity associated with the term research."
—Dr. Arthur Caplan, bioethicist now at the University of Pennsylvania
[6]
"I don't see how any credence can be given to the work of unethical
investigators. Given the source of the information and the way in which it was
obtained, how can anyone believe it? How can anyone want to believe it?"
—Dr. Arnold S. Relman, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine,
on the Nazi hypothermia work
[7]
"[The Dachau hypothermia experiments were] conducted without an orderly
experimental protocol [and] with inadequate methods and an erratic execution.
... There is also evidence of data falsification and suggestions of
fabrication. Many conclusions are not supported by the facts presented. The
flawed science is compounded by evidence that the director of the project
showed a consistent pattern of dishonesty and deception in his professional as
well as his personal life, thereby stripping the study of the last vestige of
credibility. On analysis, the Dachau hypothermia study has all the ingredients
of a scientific fraud, and rejection of the data on purely scientific grounds
is inevitable."
—Dr. Robert L. Berger, New England Deaconness Hospital and Harvard Medical
School
[8]
Yes |
No
References
5. Cohen, p. 14.
6. Caplan, Arthur L. "How Did Medicine Go So Wrong?" In Caplan, p. 65.
7. Associated Press. "Minnesota Scientist Plans to Publish Nazi Experiment on Freezing." The New York Times, 5/12/88, p. 28.
8. Berger, pp. 1439-1440.
Photo: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
The Director's Story |
Timeline of Nazi Abuses
Results of Death-Camp Experiments: Should They Be Used?
Exposing Flawed Science |
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