About
Knowledge for Today
We learn from the past so we don't make the same mistakes today.
Although German violations of the most basic medical ethics are well documented, they are virtually unknown by today’s students in the health sciences. The critical role played by American eugenicists in the development of Germany’s “racial hygiene” policies is rarely discussed. American physicians, philanthropists, politicians, lawyers, and public health officials provided indispensable legislative models, financial aid, and moral support in the 1920s and 1930s for Germany’s political philosophy of “applied biology.”
The critical role played by American eugenicists in the development of Germany’s “racial hygiene” policies is rarely discussed.
The Hippocratic Oath, the bedrock of medical ethics, was blatantly violated by the physicians of Nazi Germany when they chose to treat the health of the nation rather than the health of the individual. Simply put, Nazi Germans substituted their government’s eugenic public health policy for the best interests of their patients. The doctor-patient relationship was radically transformed into the Nazi eugenics state-Volkskörper relationship with disastrous results for those with presumed transmissible genetic disabilities.
Although healthcare in Western democracies is arguably the best in the world today, we should pause and reflect upon the similarities to German medicine ethics in the 1930s. There is a resurgence of interest in eugenics and biological determinism following the success of the Human Genome Project, violating medical ethics. Controversy persists regarding abortion, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, embryonic stem cell research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. The original Hippocratic Oath is in disrepute. Healthcare ethics is being formulated at a centralized, national level.
The mission of the Center for Medicine after the Holocaust (CMATH) is to challenge doctors, nurses, and bioscientists to personally confront the medical ethics of the Holocaust and apply that knowledge to contemporary practice and research, being mindful of the Hippocratic Oath with every step. CMATH is concerned that contemporary healthcare personnel, like all human beings, can also commit horrible medical crimes while believing they are doing good.
All human beings can commit horrible medical crimes while believing they are doing good.
By studying the past, we hope to provide knowledge for today that will prevent the repetition of previous errors and lead to wisdom in future doctors, nurses, bioscientists, and healthcare policy makers so that they will provide better care for their patients and fellow citizens.
If the best physicians, nurses, and scientists of the early 20th century could sacrifice their patients for utopian goals, can we be certain that we will not do the same.
Advisors
Rabbi Avraham Steinberg, MD
Associate Clinical Professor of Medical Ethics; Israel Prize Laureate, 1999, for the Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics; Head of the Editorial Board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia
Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School
Fred S. Zeidman
Chairman and CEO; Chairman Emeritus
Good Works Acquisition Corp; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council
Peter Hotez, MD, PhD
Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
His Eminence Daniel Cardinal DiNardo
Archbishop
Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston
David Leebron, JD
President Emeritus
Rice University
Linda L. Burger
Former CEO; Chair, Board of Directors
Jewish Family Services; RespectAbility
Joseph J. Fins, MD, MACP
The E. William Davis, Jr., MD, Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of Medical Ethics
Weill Cornell Medicine
Roberta L. Schwartz, PhD
Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer
Houston Methodist Hospital
Board of Directors
Barbara Hales, PhD
President; Professor, History and Humanities
CMATH; University of Houston – Clear Lake
Steve Finkelman
Treasurer; CFO
CMATH; Scope Imports, Inc.
Sheldon Rubenfeld, MD
Executive Director
CMATH
Therese L. Rubin, RN
Vice President and Secretary
CMATH