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Human experimentation: legal framework
and ethical argumentation in Germany
Monika Bobbert
Introduction
Different goals are followed by physicians as researchers and physicians
treating individual patients. This is the main point in the discussion about
medical research. As researchers strive for making a contribution to the
public knowledge or to future patients, practical physicians concentrate
only on the promotion of health and well-being of their individual pa-
tients. Thus, with clinical research a physician enters into a conflict of
interest. Two discrepant goals have to be followed. The duty towards the
individual patient is in conflict with the duty to increase scientific knowl-
edge. The discussion about human experimentation focuses on the extent
to which these different ethical norms are taken into consideration.
Legal regulations in Germany
Ethical norms and rules have the tendency to become laws, because they
set limits to protect against the violation of their basic moral rights. They
are also supposed to protect the public against dangers of scientific re-
search (e.g. of new combinations of viruses).
In Germany, legal regulations are based on the constitution which guar-
antees human dignity, the right of protection of life and the right of physi-
cal and psychological integrity.
1
The individual right of scientific freedom
1
Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland , “I Die Grundrechte (basic law)”, see
especially article 1 and 2.
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