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"Perhaps justice would ultimately be
served if we were to allow life to emerge from the Nazi murders," says the
ethicist Baruch Cohen. Pictured: A prisoner during a high-altitude
experiment at Dachau.
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If the data have a chance to benefit people today, are we not morally obligated
to use them?
The United States produces about one billion pounds of phosgene gas a year for
use in manufacturing plastics and pesticides. Yet phosgene causes lung
irritation and fluid build-up and can making breathing difficult if not
impossible. To assess the risks to factory workers and those living nearby, the
Environmental Protection Agency thought of using Nazi data on phosgene-gas
experiments, but decided it was immoral. As one writer commented, "Is it
fair to those people currently being exposed to the chemical to pretend that
applicable data do not exist? Can the ethical questions be so compelling that
we ignore information that might conceivably reduce the amount of human
suffering and misery currently being experienced?" [49]
"We cannot imply any approval of the methods. Nor, however, should we let the
inhumanity of the experiments blind us to the possibility that some good may be
salvaged from the ashes."
—Kristine Moe, journalist
[49]
"As a child of survivors of the Holocaust, I have strong empathy for those
opposed to the data's use. Nevertheless, as a physician who deals with children
and has seen them comatose, brain damaged, and dead from hypothermia, my sense
is that to save one child through the use of this information is worthwhile."
—Anonymous medical doctor
[50]
"Perhaps justice would ultimately be served if we were to allow life to emerge
from the Nazi murders."
—Baruch Cohen, attorney and ethicist
[51]
Yes |
No
References
48. Katz, Jay. "Abuse of Human Beings for the Sake of Science." In
Caplan, p. 264.
49. Moe, p. 7.
50. Siegel, p. 1.
51. Cohen, p. 20.
Photo: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
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