The Nuremberg Code

In one line

Ten sentences, written by judges rather than scientists, that every subsequent instrument in this field is a commentary on.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Nuremberg Code 1947 consists of ten points formulated in the judgment of a military tribunal trying physicians for experimentation on human beings; the first, that the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential, is stated as an absolute and placed before every other requirement; and the remaining nine govern the justification, design, conduct and termination of an experiment, so that consent is a necessary and not a sufficient condition of permissible research.

The ten points

The Code is short enough to be learnt entire, and an answer that reproduces its structure accurately is worth more than one that paraphrases it loosely.

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur.

6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons.

9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end.

10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

The structure

The ten points are not a list of equals, and reading their arrangement is what turns recitation into understanding.