RR Phantom
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 |  Subject: Fact Check: Full Fact's Claims About The Nuremberg Code  Sun Jan 30, 2022 4:02 pm | |
| Recently, Twitter put out a statement, based upon the opinions of so-called fact checkers, that the Covid-19 jab rollout does not contravene the Nuremberg Code. This is just the latest in a long line of such pronouncements from all the social media big players. Twitter said:
The 10-point guidelines established in response to Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust are unrelated to widespread Covid-19 vaccination efforts, according to Lead Stories, FactCheck.org, RMIT ABC and other fact-checkers. Legal and medical experts told The Associated Press that Germany’s new Covid-19 measures don’t violate the Nuremberg Code because that ethical code applies to research involving human subjects, not public health interventions. Moreover, the Nuremberg Code does not apply to Covid-19 jabs, according to Rappler and Full Fact, because they have undergone extensive clinical trials and have received emergency use authorization around the world.
Like other major social media platforms, Twitter employs fact checkers, supposedly to debunk false claims. As we shall see, that claim itself is false.
Reuters is one of the news agencies that are official fact checking partners of Twitter. James C. Smith, chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, is also a Pfizer board member. Reuters is a member of the Trusted News Initiative, whose stated purpose is to combat allegedly harmful vaccine disinformation.
This is just one strand of a web of conflicts of interest that broadly characterise the fact checking industry. Independence and impartiality seem to be irrelevant, as far as the fact checkers and their clients—the social media platforms and the mainstream media—are concerned.
Twitter has a specific policy to address what it calls "misleading information" about Covid-19 and the so-called vaccines. In it, Twitter makes many claims, deemed to be unassailable facts, that are not facts at all. For example, Twitter insists that it is misleading to state:
That vaccines approved by health agencies [...] did not actually receive full approval/authorization, and therefore that the vaccines are untested, “experimental” or somehow unsafe.
This is a denial of the facts. As we shall see, the jabs did not receive "full approval/authorization" and there is no evidence that they are either safe or effective. They are also unquestionably experimental.
Since it is a fact checker cited by Twitter, and is based in the UK, we will focus upon the claims made by Full Fact. These are more or less the same as those made by Lead Stories, RMIT, ABC, Reuters and other fact checkers.
Full Fact states, as fact, that the jabs are not experimental. Insisting upon the factuality of this claim, it asserts in consequence that the Nuremberg Code is irrelevant with respect to the vaccine passports. So let's examine these supposed facts.
Background
The 1947 Nuremberg Code established ethical standards for the treatment of human subjects in experiments. For the purposes of our discussion, we will focus upon the first of ten principles contained in the Code, which can be summarised as:
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the subject should have legal capacity, be able to exercise free choice and should have all the information they need to make an "enlightened decision." Any use of "force, fraud, deceit, duress [...] constraint or coercion" would be a direct violation of the Code.
The responsibility for judging consent lies with "each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment." This is "a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity."
The Nuremberg Code is not statute law. However, it not only established a code of medical ethics for such experiments; it also encouraged the development of ethical standards in general medical practice. It is perhaps the single most important document in existence concerning medical ethics and human rights in the field of medicine.
The principle of voluntary informed consent, established at Nuremberg, has been adopted by the medical profession for all medical procedures and treatments. For example, the National Health Service states:
The principle of consent is an important part of medical ethics and international human rights law.
All western, liberal, representative democracies have incorporated the principles outlined in the Nuremberg Code into law. While the Code itself is not law, breaching it certainly does have legal ramifications.
In Montgomery v Lanarkshire 2015, the UK Supreme Court ruling was unequivocal:
An adult person of sound mind is entitled to decide which, if any, of the available forms of treatment to undergo, and her consent must be obtained before treatment interfering with her bodily integrity is undertaken. The doctor is therefore under a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that the patient is aware of any material risks involved in any recommended treatment.
This ruling meant that medical practitioners could no longer choose what information to provide to the patient. Nothing short of complete disclosure of all information, including all potential risks, was required to fulfil the lawful duty to facilitate "informed" consent prior to treatment.
Building upon the Nuremberg Code, the subsequent Declaration of Helsinki clarified the same standard of informed consent required for medical research:
No individual capable of giving informed consent may be enrolled in a research study unless he or she freely agrees [...]
In medical research involving human subjects capable of giving informed consent, each potential subject must be adequately informed of the [...] potential risks of the study and [...] any other relevant aspects of the study[;] the physician or another appropriately qualified individual must then seek the potential subject’s freely-given informed consent.
With regard to voluntary consent, the ethical standards required for medical researchers on the one hand (in clinical trials) and physicians on the other (in medical practice) differ little. It is undoubtedly the responsibility of the physician or qualified person to ensure that the subject or patient has all the information they need to give informed consent. These principles, based upon human rights law developed from the Nuremberg Code, have been adjudicated in law on many occasions.
.https://www.ukcolumn.org/index.php/article/fact-check-full-facts-claims-about-the-nuremberg-code
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