In the wake of Austria's drastic lockdown of unvaccinated people, EU chief calls for throwing out Nuremberg Code
Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU commission, told the press on Wednesday that she is in favour of scrapping the long-standing Nuremburg Code and forcing people to get vaccinated against COVID.
By: James Anthony of The Post Millennial
Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU commission, told the press on Wednesday that she is in favour of scrapping the long-standing Nuremburg Code and forcing people to get vaccinated against COVID.
"Hey, it's just the Nuremberg code. Only what we learned from the Nazi atrocities, not least those that were medical," sarcastically notes esteemed professor, lecturer and podcaster Dr. Jordan Peterson:
In Austria, people over 12 who are not vaccinated are currently almost completely locked down, only allowed outside for absolutely essential tasks like food or medical appointments.
In an interview she gave to the BBC, the EU chief said that it was "understandable and appropriate" to consider vaccine mandates, especially due to the new Omicron variant of COVID 19, which has been now detected in 12 different member nations of the EU.
"How we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union? This needs discussion. This needs a common approach, but it is a discussion that I think has to be led," commented von der Leyen to the BBC.
The WHO, however, has strongly encouraged countries not to enact travel bans because of Omicron, and further iterated that early data points to the fact that most Omicron cases are not severe. Most of the world's governments are not paying attention to the WHO's guidelines on this occasion, however.
The Nuremberg Code was enacted in 1947, immediately after the Second World War to prevent many of the egregious human rights abuses enacted by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese during the war.
Especially at issue were the performance of medical procedures on subjects without their consent. These procedures, often performed under the command of people such as Dr. Josef Mengele or Hideki Tojo, often were akin to the worst kinds of torture. Since then, full and proactive ongoing consent has been required.
Reproduced here below is the section of the Nuremberg Code which is in question:
Relevant Nuremberg Code (1947) – Permissible Medical Experiments
The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
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 or other problem under study that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment.
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; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
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. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
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.
For more information see Nuremberg Doctor’s Trial, BMJ 1996;313(7070):1445-75.
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