Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg

Title: Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg
Date: 1946-1947
Description: An American military tribunal prosecuted 23 German physicians and administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including criminal medical experimentation. The tribunal's judgment articulated principles for permissible human experimentation that became known as the Nuremberg Code.
ABP identifier: ABP-E-0006
Historical significance: The Doctors' Trial created the judicial setting in which the Nuremberg Code was articulated. For the history of American bioethics, it is best treated as an international postwar event with direct U.S. institutional involvement and as a foundational antecedent to later American research ethics rather than as the beginning of American bioethics itself.
Intellectual stream: Research ethics & consent
Verification status: Verified
Evidence confidence: High
Open question: How should the project represent the initially limited uptake of the Nuremberg Code within mainstream U.S. clinical research?