Bioethics - a brief history: from the Nuremberg code (1947) to the Belmont report (1979)

Abstract

This study tells the story of Bioethics in the period between the Nuremberg Code (1947) and Belmont Report (1979). Bioethics is a word etymologically formed by two Greek etyma: bio (s) and ethike. A triple paternity and triple birth place was allocated to this neologism: Van Rensselaer Potter in Wisconsin; Shriver and Hellegers in Washington; and Fritz Jahr in Halle an der Saale (Germany). Potter was concerned, in principle, with the environment and sustainability of human life on the planet; the Washington group was mainly concerned with problems and ethical challenges imposed on Medicine by new technologies; and Fritz Jahr was concerned with ethical relations between human beings and animals and plants. Bioethics is born bringing into memory the inhuman experiments performed on vulnerable people during the World War II, and grows side by side with great scientific and technological development. That same technology that increases the potential of medicines brings serious moral challenges that the traditional Hippocratic ethics has difficulties to respond. All this is happening at the same time when people are fighting for more autonomy and rights. To reflect on this context and identify the best alternatives of conduct is one of the roles of Bioethics.