The Consent Form 1947 – The Nuremberg Code and Research Participant Consent

The ancient Hippocratic Oath speaks of physicians wishing to protect patients from harm. However, it does not address consent for human experiments or adequately explaining the risks of tests to patients. 

For much of medical history, physicians considered it acceptable to deceive patients deliberately. The requirement for medical researchers to obtain consent from participants emerged particularly at the end of World War II, following the horrific experiments Nazi physicians conducted on people. Examples of these chilling experiments, usually performed on Jews and other prisoners, included: 

• Chilling naked people on ice 
• Injecting chemicals into twins' eyes to change their color
• Attempting to create conjoined twins by joining twins together

During the 1947 Nuremberg trials concerning experiments Nazi scientists had performed on people, it became clear that no internationally recognized code governed such research. To address this gap, the Nuremberg Code was created and accepted by countries. It emphasizes the need for voluntary consent from human participants who understand the proposed research and take part in experiments designed to benefit society. Participants are free to end the experiment. The code also stresses that experiments must be conducted appropriately to avoid unnecessary physical and mental suffering. 

To give consent, participants must be mentally “competent” at the time. Children are generally considered “incompetent,” and legal guardians may act on their behalf. Physicians are usually permitted to provide emergency treatment to unconscious patients who cannot consent. 

A famous example of a lack of informed consent is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, conducted in Tuskegee, Alabama, between 1932 and 1972. Men with syphilis were not treated appropriately and were not told they had the disease. United States researchers who believed this would allow them to study its progression caused some participants to die of syphilis or their wives to contract the disease.

About the Article Image: As part of the 1953 MK-ULTRA project, the CIA tried to study LSD's effects by giving it to participants without their consent. LSD can cause people to see neon colors, geometric shapes and moving objects.

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