Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research

by William R. LaFleur (Editor), Gernot Böhme (Editor), Susumu Shimazono (Editor)

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007