PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Miller, Franklin G
TI  - Research and complicity: the case of Julius Hallervorden
AID  - 10.1136/jme.2011.044586
DP  - 2012 Jan 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 53--56
VI  - 38
IP  - 1
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/38/1/53.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/38/1/53.full
SO  - J Med Ethics2012 Jan 01; 38
AB  - The charge of complicity has been raised in debates over the ethics of fetal tissue transplantation and embryonic stem cell research. However, the applicability of the concept of complicity to these types of research is neither clear nor uncontroversial. This article discusses the historical case of Julius Hallervorden, a distinguished German neuropathologist who conducted research on brains of mentally handicapped patients killed in the context of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ programme. It is argued that this case constitutes a paradigm of complicity in research that is useful in assessing complicity in contemporary research ethics.