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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
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