Oversight of Dual-Use Research: What Role for Ethics Committees?

The World Health Organization (WHO) addresses the governance of biorisks, including dual-use research, for countries. It emphasizes engaging multisectoral stakeholders such as governments, scientific bodies, health and research institutes, standard-setting organizations, funding bodies, and others. Ethics constitutes a key component of the framework.

Ethical challenges in primary care: a focus group study with general practitioners, nurses and informal caregivers.

Background: General practitioners (GPs), nurses and informal caregivers are often jointly involved in healthcare situations in which ethical issues play an important role.

Objectives: To describe ethical problems from the perspective of these three groups and to investigate whether there is a common experience of ethical issues in primary care.

Methods: We conducted six focus groups with general practitioners, nurses and informal caregivers in Germany.

The role of the State Security Service (Stasi) in the context of international clinical trials conducted by western pharmaceutical companies in Eastern Germany (1961-1990).

Background: After the building of the Berlin Wall in the 1960s, a number of international pharmaceutical manufacturers from the West had their drugs tested in Eastern Germany (GDR). So far, the extensive collection of documents on the subject stored in the archives of the GDR State Security Service (Stasi, MfS) has not been systematically analysed. Until now, the role of the Stasi with respect to the surveillance of the trials has been unclear.

Advance Directives as Support of Autonomy for Persons with Dementia? A Pilot Study among Persons with Dementia and Their Informal Caregivers.

Background: Advance directives could be an important instrument to support a person's will once he/she is not able to consent anymore - if composed competently. A survey was conducted to identify the level of knowledge concerning possibilities and limits of advance directives.

Methods: The study was conducted as part of the Bavarian Dementia Survey (BayDem).

[Medical Treatment of Newly Arrived Refugees in Erlangen: A Study of Drug Prescription Rates Focused on Psychotropic Drugs].

In 2015 the number of refugees who sought asylum in Germany has increased dramatically. Therefore, the medical care for these refugees faces huge challenges. The treatment of mental illness of refugees is a particular difficult topic.

The DSM 5 and the Istanbul Protocol: Diagnosis of psychological sequels of torture.

The Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol, is an interdisciplinary standard supported by, among others, the United Nations and the World Medical Association. It aims at aiding the fight against torture by giving clear guidelines to ensure better and more effective assessment of physical and psychological sequels. Mental health is a key aspect of diagnostical assessment and documentation due to the severe and frequently long-lasting impact of torture that often lasts longer than physical sequels.

Access to healthcare for undocumented migrants with communicable diseases in Germany: a quantitative study.

Background: Migrants without residence permits are de facto excluded from access to healthcare in Germany. There is one exception in relevant legislation: in the case of sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis, the legislator has instructed the local Public Health Authorities to offer free and anonymous counseling, testing and, if necessary, treatment in case of apparent need. Furthermore, recommended vaccinations may be carried out free of charge.

Testing ground GDR: Western pharmaceutical firms conducting clinical trials behind the Iron Curtain.

Western pharmaceutical companies conducted clinical trials in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Recently, media reports about alleged human experimentation provoked a wave of indignation. However, a scientific and objective account of these trials is lacking.

[Werner Leibbrand, Annemarie Wettley and controversies on "euthanasia" the background of medico-historical and ethical debates in the Post World War II era].

Psychiatrists and medical historians Werner Leibbrand (1896 - 1974) and Annemarie Wettley (1913 - 1996) are amongst the most striking figures in the field of history of medicine. Leibbrand was appointed director of the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" in Erlangen shortly after the war. Fuelled by his own experiences of suppression and persecution during the Nazi era he promised to unearth the crimes and atrocities which had happened under watch of the Nazi regime.

Clinical ethics and patient advocacy: the power of communication in health care.

In recent years, the rights of patients have assumed a more pivotal role in international discussion. Stricter laws on the protection of patients place greater priority on the perspective and the status of patients. The purpose of this study is to emphasize ethical aspects in communication, the role of patient advocates as contacts for the concerns and suggestions of patients, and how many problems of ethics disappear when communication is highlighted.

Ethics consultation and empathy : finding the balance in clinical settings.

There is no doubt that emotions have an important effect on practices of moral reasoning such as clinical ethics consultation. Empathy is not only a basic human emotion but also an important and learnable skill for health care professionals. A basic amount of empathy is essential both in patient care and in clinical ethics consultation.

Human rights from the Nuremberg Doctors Trial to the Geneva Declaration. Persons and institutions in medical ethics and history.

The "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and the "Geneva Declaration" by the World Medical Association, both in 1948, were preceded by the foundation of the United Nations in New York (1945), the World Medical Association in London (1946) and the World Health Organization in Geneva (1948). After the end of World War II the community of nations strove to achieve and sustain their primary goals of peace and security, as well as their basic premise, namely the health of human beings. All these associations were well aware of the crimes by medicine, in particular by the accused Nazi physicians at the Nuremberg Doctors Trial (1946/47, sentence: August 1947).

Documentation of torture and the Istanbul Protocol: applied medical ethics.

The so-called Istanbul Protocol, a Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was adopted by the United Nations soon after its completion in 1999 and since then has become an acknowledged standard for documenting cases of alleged torture and other forms of severe maltreatment. In 2009 the "Forum for medicine and human rights" at the Medical Faculty at the University Erlangen-Nuremburg has provided the first German edition of this manual. The article traces back the development of the protocol taking into account the general background as well as the factual occasion of its initiation.

[History as politics. Medical historians in Berlin and Graz serving the NS-State].

History of medicine played an important part in the ideology and policy of the Third Reich. The Nazi Party and the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) tried to instrumentalize historical knowledge to justify their ideology and medical ethics. The academic discipline of the history of medicine saw a revival during the Nazi period and, especially, during the Second World War.

["Eternal physicianship" or "new medical ethics" 1939-1945? Hippocrates and historians in the service of war].

What changes, if any, came with the so-called "new medical ethics" that was propagated during the Nazi period and the war of 1939-1945? This article analyses the context of the publication series "Ewiges Arzttum" ("eternal physicianship"), which was edited during World War II. The first volume--"Hippocrates"--included an introduction by the "Reichsführer-SS", Heinrich Himmler, and was edited by the "Reichsarzt-SS", Ernst Grawitz. B.

[Persons, networks and institutions: on the founding of the German Society of History of Medicine and Natural Sciences].

In what way did the process of founding the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und Naturwissenschaften" (1901), the world's oldest society for the history of science develop? This article combines approaches of the historiography of institutions with concepts focusing on individual persons. During the early period of the process August Hirsch and Theodor Puschmann were the most relevant scientists. The history of the "Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Arzte" (GDNA) and their annual meetings mirror the difficult connection of medical history and medical geography or tropical medicine.