The Nuremberg Code and the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis study at Tuskegee

Discussion Post

The Nuremberg Trials and the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee highlighted the extremes to which some researchers would push human trials. This exposure necessitated the establishment of the Nuremberg Code as a requirement for medical practice in research activities. IRB (Institutional Research Boards) came about as taskmasters of the Nuremberg Code and other established ethical research guidelines. The Nuremberg Trials set the standards that research on human beings had to adhere to from the 1950s (Deutsch, 2019). This provision of a standard for researchers to follow established the concept of research regulation. Authorities have increased the standards researchers must adhere to between then and now, including adding protected classes such as children and standardizing the informed consent forms (Osborne & Luoma, 2018). These resulting standards required an overseer, and each institution established its own in the form of the IRB. The IRB protects the research participants and the affiliated institution by ensuring the researcher adheres to all ethical research regulations.

The Tuskegee study caused institutions to understand how an unethical study under their institution’s watch may be detrimental to their standing in society. Thus, they created the IRBs to reduce the chances of repeating corrupt research practices within their institutional bounds. Over time, IRBs have become synonymous with ethical research oversight, and every study lends itself to the scrutiny of an IRB to validate its methods and findings. The publicity surrounding the Tuskegee study and the consequent financial and legal requirements continually remind IRB members that they are responsible to society and their institutions to ensure maximum compliance with all regulations (Spellecy & Busse, 2021). One may say that the Nuremberg Code and the Tuskegee case are responsible for the high standards that IRBs maintain in their evaluation of research methods.

References

Deutsch, E. (2019). The Nuremberg Code: The Proceedings in the Medical Case, the Ten Principles of Nuremberg and the Lasting Effect of the Nuremberg Code. In Ethics Codes in Medicine (pp. 71-83). Routledge.

Osborne, T. L., & Luoma, J. B. (2018). Overcoming a primary barrier to practice-based research: Access to an institutional review board (IRB) for independent ethics review. Psychotherapy, 55(3), 255-262. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/pst0000166

Spellecy, R., & Busse, K. (2021). The history of human subjects research and rationale for institutional board review oversight. Nutrition in Clinical Practice, 36(3), 560-567. https://doi.org/10.1002/ncp.10623