Data from Nazi Medical Experiments

Remember Dr.Mengele? He was the evil Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. A while back, I read this article debating the ethics of using any findings derived from such experiments. Would it be ethical today to use such findings, asked the article.

Unfortunately, the easy answer that might have made this whole topic go away doesn’t apply: not all of that data was scientifically suspect:

“Some of the data from Nazi experiments is scientifically sound enough to be useful.”

One such example is the hypothermia experiments in which people were immersed in ice water until they became unconscious. Or died. This data on the rate of cooling of humans in icy waters and when re-warming might succeed could be useful today when dealing with folks rescued from boat accidents. Such examples raise the troubling question:

“Should the results of Nazi experiments ever be taken up and used?”

As the article says, the utilitarian attitude would be:

“If good can come to people now and in the future from using the data, then its use is surely justified. After all, no further harm can be done to those who died.”

After all, murder victims can become organ donors and most people are ok with that.

But what about the “indirect and subtle consequences” of such a course of action? Would we be encouraging more such “morally blinkered doctors” in future?

How about using such data for the greater good but keeping the data/source secret? That’s not really an option because:

“Recommending deception to solve a moral problem is clearly problematic in itself.”

Personally, I feel what’s done is done. We should prosecute the docs when we find them. But it should be ok to use such data after a long time limit, says a few decades. That kind of time window would prevent the do’ers of such acts from benefiting personally. What’s your take on this topic?