Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research (Bioethics and the Humanities) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253220416 ISBN 13: 9780253220417

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2008

Synopsis

The trial of the "German doctors" exposed atrocities of Nazi medical science and led to the Nuremberg Code governing human experimentation. In Japan, Unit 731 carried out hideous experiments on captured Chinese and downed American pilots. In the United States, stories linger of biological experimentation during the Korean War. This collection of essays looks at the dark medical research conducted during and after World War II. Contributors describe this research, how it was brought to light, and the rationalizations of those who perpetrated and benefited from it; look at the response to the revelations of this horrific research and its implications for present-day medicine and ethics; and offer lessons about human experimentation in an age of human embryo research and genetic engineering.

About this title

From the Publisher

"By identifying and analyzing how the unethical was justified and rationalized, the authors draw moral and political lessons from this disturbing history that we have not yet really learned." --Nie Jing-Bao, author of Medical Ethics in China

This collection of essays examines the past and future of evil state-sponsored research. It's multinational authors bring fresh perspectives on twentieth century experiments by Germany, Japan and United States. The book's second half looks to the future. Diverse authors reflect on how an un-self critical acceptance of medical risks; new concepts of body, death and embryos; and utopian visions of the cornucopia of science may be obscuring lessons from bitter experiences that we believe would deliver us from evil.

Steven H Miles, MD Professor of Medicine and Bioethics University of Minnesota

About the Author

William R. LaFleur is the E. Dale Saunders Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan.

Gernot Böhme recently retired as Professor of Philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His books in English include Coping with Science and Ethics in Context: The Art of Dealing with Serious Questions.

Susumu Shimazono is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tokyo and serves on the Japanese Prime Minister's Advisory Panel on Bioethics.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0253220416
• ISBN 13: 9780253220417
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 259
• Editor: LaFleur William R., Böhme Gernot, Shimazono Susumu