But the committee was widely praised for the way it carried out its two other main tasks, providing a public accounting of the events of the past and making recommendations for the future based on lessons from these events. I was not a member of this committee, but served on its staff. The staff was responsible for most of the historical research, and drafted findings and recommendations for consideration by the committee. My work focused on experiments involving the deliberate release of radioactive materials into the environment. More than most scientists, biomedical researchers face ethical questions of what means are legitimate for gathering experimental data, particularly when the experiments involve human beings as subjects of research.
Biomedical ethics involves two basic principles.
First, researchers must weigh the anticipated benefits of an experiment against the anticipated risks. Second, people who are subjects of research must knowingly agree to take part in that research, a requirement known as informed consent. These principles seem fairly obvious, and served as the basis for the Nuremberg Code that provided the standard for judging Nazi doctors accused of crimes against humanity. Still, they were not widely observed as the standard of practice until decades later. Even in the 1960s, the physician was vested with great authority and informed consent was often honored in the breach.