An important reminder that we must never forget Nazi doctors

THE LAST WORD

---

Dr Hans Asperger (1906-1980), the Viennese academic paediatrician best known for his contributions to our understanding of autism and related conditions, has been revealed as a Nazi sympathiser. 

The revelations were contained in the results of an eight-year study of Dr Asperger published in the April edition of Molecular Autism.

The research was carried out by Dr Herwig Czech, a Holocaust scholar from the Medical University of Vienna, who concluded Dr Asperger failed to protect his young patients from the Nazis’ euthanasia program. 

In fact, Dr Asperger frequently referred children with what we now call autism and similar problems to a Nazi clinic for children with disabilities, who were judged to be a burden to parents and the state.

Somehow, Dr Asperger managed to sidestep criticism for his close association with the Nazi regime and continued practising as a respected clinician for decades after World War II.

However, his actions and those of other doctors who carried out medical atrocities in Nazi Germany led to a global movement among doctors to stop this from ever happening again.

The result was the establishment of the World Medical Association, which aimed to restate the ethical basis for the practice of humane medicine. It achieved this in the Declaration of Geneva published in 1948. 

The declaration provides doctors around the world with a code of ethics. They pledge not to permit “considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient”.

The declaration also demands doctors “respect the autonomy and dignity” of their patient. But has it worked? Since it was introduced, we have not heard of anything on the scale of the human experimentation and euthanasia carried out by doctors working under the Nazis.

However, there have been cases. The so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were widely used on terrorist suspects rounded up by the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11.

While the torture methods were developed and inflicted on detainees by psychologists (contracted by the CIA) rather than doctors, groups such as Physicians For Human Rights claim doctors were complicit in what was happening by monitoring the health of those being tortured.

This included using a pulse oximeter to track the effectiveness of respiration during waterboarding. The group suggests this was a way for doctors to “calibrate physical and mental pain and suffering”.

More than a decade on, no medical professional has been held to account for their involvement in this dark chapter of American history, the group says. 

With this in mind, rather than curse the medical ethics committees that delay research, we should be grateful for these necessary checks and balances. And remind ourselves of the reasons why they came into existence.  

Published in the Medical Observer, 8 June 2018