Military Medical Ethics - Historical Background

Historical Background

Discussions of MME often take as a point of departure the lessons to be learned from the perversion of medical practice by military physicians and others in the period leading up to and during World War II in Germany and Japan. They may also entail the more recently revealed Cold War radiation experiments undertaken by the United States government. Such discussions often center upon questions of whether these widely deplored activities of the past can be reasonably compared to present-day military medical ethics dilemmas.

Read more about this topic:  Military Medical Ethics

Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:

    Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody’s mom in that she knows what’s best for us. But if you look at the historical record—Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages—you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?
    Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)

    Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)