Medical Research from the Holocaust

Question

I am a second year medical student. We have recently begun our neurology term. Today, I found out that the recommended text for this course, Neural Science, by Kandel & Schwartz, has been largely based on the results of experiments performed by the authors on people living in concentration camps during WWII – mostly Jews, but as you would know, also Gypsies, the intellectually disabled, and many others. I am now very conflicted about using this text, but even if I use other authors, it appears that much of what we know of neurology to date is derived from these terrible events. What is the most ethical way to approach this? Your help is very much appreciated.

Answer

What an awful position to be in. I wasn’t aware that such a text existed.

In my opinion, the students using the text should be made aware of the source of the data and all should acknowledge that the data was obtained in an inethical, inhumane fashion. Just ask them to imagine their own grandmother had been tortured in order to advance medical science. That is, in fact, what happened. Those people were someone’s grandmother, brother, child, etc.

Moreover, I would like to find out if Kandel and Schwartz or their publisher are benefitting financially from this data, and if so to challenge them to turn part or all of their profit to aid victims of the Holocaust, who – unbelievably – are still suffering into their old age.

Rabbi Seinfeld

Follow-up question

Question

It is quite difficult to understand the idea of any experiment performed by Eric himself in a Nazi camp. Please note that I am not a relative of Eric Kandel, although I can meet him everyday if I like. Nevertheless, I found your ideas about Eric quite disturbing.

Answer

I think we have had a miscommunication here. I never suggested or even entertained the thought that Prof. Kandel performed unethical experiments.

You told me that they have written a textbook based on data that was obtained unethically. If they are profiting financially from sales of the textbook, then they are profiting financially from the data. If not, not.

I find it offensive and immoral to use such data without so much as an acknowledgment of its unethical source; doing so as you described in your original question seems to retroactively validate the experiments themselves. To shrug, as some have done, and say, “well, I have no choice, the cat’s out of the bag” is, in fact, a choice.

I was bothered enough by your reaction to my original answer that I went back and re-read your original question to see where the miscommunication may have started. I now believe that I may have misunderstood your question.

You wrote: “largely based on the results of experiments performed by the authors on people living in concentration camps during WWII”

Do you mean that the experiments were performed during WWII or that the subjects are former concentration camp inmates? Since Dr. Kandel was only a child during the War it is not likely that he was performing experiments then, so I take it you mean the latter.

If so, then I would modify my original answer. To study someone with his consent after he has undergone an ordeal I don’t think is unethical. The key here is the subject’s consent.

Hope that clarifies the matter.