Human Sacrifice and Human Experimentation: Reflections at Nuremberg

Abstract

Jay Katz is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor Emeritus of Law, Medicine, and Psychiatry and Harvey L. Karp Professorial Lecturer in Law and Psychoanalysis at Yale Law School. An internationally recognized scholar of medical ethics, with particular expertise in the ethics of human experimentation and in the doctor-patient relationship, Professor Katz is currently working on a book-length study of the issues raised in the address presented here. This address was originally given at the final plenary session of a conference commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi doctors’ trial at Nuremberg, October 25-27, 1996. The conference was convened by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Physicians for Social Responsibility.