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Eduard Pernkopf and the Ethics of Science from Holocausts

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A tempest has arisen recently in the wake of the videos documenting the sale of body parts of aborted children to scientists for use in research. Dr. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who is running for the Republican nomination for president, is a strong pro-life advocate. However, recently it has become clear that Dr. Carson used human fetal tissue obtained from abortions in some of his research a couple of decades ago.

This raises quite real ethical questions. There’s a famous parallel in medical anatomy, which is worth discussing.

I have a good friend who is an Israeli neurosurgeon. When he travels to New York (which is often), he stops by and we have lunch. We share interests — our profession, politics, history, and religion. Some years ago we were discussing the teaching of anatomy to medical students, and I mentioned that I use a specific anatomical atlas, written and illustrated by an anatomist named Eduard Pernkopf.

Pernkopf’s atlas is highly respected in the profession — his illustrations are remarkably accurate, and are of great use to surgeons who need detailed realistic anatomic depictions that allow us to prepare for operations and know the anatomy thoroughly prior to a difficult operation.

When I mentioned Pernkopf, my friend’s eyes widened. He asked me if I knew the story behind Pernkopf’s anatomical atlas. I did not.

Pernkopf, who was a professor of anatomy in Vienna in the Thirties and Forties, was a fanatical Nazi, as were most of his illustrators. The incredible detail of his anatomical atlas was due to the fact that his dissections were on the bodies of people killed only minutes before the dissection — people executed and murdered by Pernkopf’s Nazi associates.

I haven’t used Pernkopf’s atlas since, although not entirely because I understand its provenance (I am old enough not to rely so much on atlases nowadays). But the dilemma of Pernkopf’s atlas is a topic much discussed in medicine. Is it ethical to use something (e.g. an atlas compiled by murderers, or fetal tissue obtained from aborted children) that was obtained in an unethical manner? Similar questions can be asked about the use of information gleaned from the Tuskegee syphilis study or from the Nazi concentration camp experiments on cold-water immersion.

This is the question faced by many doctors and scientists. There are no simple answers here, but I think most thoughtful people can agree on some ethical principles.

The use of illicitly obtained specimens can be defended if it serves a genuinely good purpose (e.g. helping a surgeon learn anatomy) and if the use of the specimen does not encourage or directly cause further illicit activity. For example, reading Pernkopf today doesn’t encourage Nazis to kill more prisoners.

However, generally speaking, using human fetal tissue for research does encourage abortion and the sale of slaughtered children’s bodies. It is unethical, in the same way that purchasing child pornography is unethical — it perpetuates the continued brutal victimization of children. And the argument that human fetal tissue research is essential to advance medicine is nonsense. Basic science advances can be obtained with non-human tissue (e.g. fetal rats), and adult stem cell research — which does not entail any harm to the donors — has been extraordinarily fruitful in both research and clinical applications.

Human fetal tissue research for clinical application has been a failure, and the use of human fetal tissue in research perpetuates the market in slaughtered children.

Dr. Carson should apologize for using the tissue, although his intentions were obviously good. We all make mistakes, and we learn as we go. But there is no defense for using human fetal tissue in research.

Image by Art.npf (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Michael Egnor

Senior Fellow, Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

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