A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine has sparked controversy by criticizing the publication for its lack of coverage on the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the name of medical science. The article, written by medical historians Allan Brandt and Joelle Abi-Rached from Harvard, highlights the journal’s failure to address the horrific experiments conducted on twins at Auschwitz and other discriminatory policies throughout Hitler’s tenure.
The authors point out that while other leading science journals covered the Nazis’ medical depredations, the New England Journal of Medicine did not publish an article explicitly condemning the atrocities until 1949, four years after World War II ended. This lack of coverage is seen as a missed opportunity to denounce the Nazis’ heinous actions and to educate the medical community about the dangers of falling into similar objectionable ideas in the future.
The new article, part of a series addressing racism and prejudice in the medical establishment, also uncovered a paper in the journal’s archives endorsing Nazi medical practices. The authors of the paper, Michael Davis and Gertrud Kroeger, praised the Nazis’ emphasis on public health without acknowledging the persecutory and antisemitic laws that had been passed.
The historians were surprised by the journal’s indifference towards the Nazis’ atrocities, noting that there was almost nothing in the archives condemning or justifying the perversions of medicine committed by the Nazis. This indifference, they argue, contributed to the catastrophic shifts that occurred during the Holocaust.
Dr. Eric Rubin, the journal’s editor, acknowledges the importance of learning from past mistakes and ensuring that similar atrocities are not repeated in the future. The article serves as a reminder of the role that silence can play in allowing radical and immoral actions to take place.
Overall, the article sheds light on the importance of confronting difficult and uncomfortable truths from the past in order to prevent similar injustices from occurring in the future. It serves as a call to action for the medical community to actively address and condemn atrocities committed in the name of science.
