Using Nazi Science Data

In response to Barry Siegel’s article “Can Evil Beget Good?--Nazi Data: A Dilemma for Science,” Part I, Oct. 30:

There are two issues here. Do the ends justify the means, and human rights.

Would our doctor-scientists do what those Nazi brute doctor-scientists did to gather their data? To achieve their ends? We would hope not, yet the records show that our good men of science, in fact, did.

Citing from your article: 1) The Tuskegee syphilis experiments on 400 unsuspecting black men. 2) The Willowbrook hepatitis experiments on mentally retarded patients. 3) “ . . . 22 such dubious human experiments conducted in the U.S. since World War II’ --which one can suspect, if consistency is a measure, that these, too, were performed on “unsuspecting” groups of people who, as it seems, were minorities. Minorities! Just like those Jews in Dachau.

So, the argument now offered by some doctor-scientists is that since the deed is done and cannot be undone, mankind ought to at least profit from the data, however heinously gathered.

If the data is to be used, then I submit that not a cent of profit goes to any institution, doctor or scientist who builds on it, in any manner. Rather the profits, such as they be, should be used to pay tribute to those who suffered those brutal experiments by having the following message displayed on every bottle of medicine, piece of equipment, and procedure that the data help develop: “This was acquired and developed by inhuman means. If it saves your life, or that of your loved one--remember the Holocaust!”

MALCOLM WITTMAN

Los Angeles