Nuremberg Code Falsely Associated with COVID-19 Vaccines
In today’s Medium article, I’ll be discussing the recycled claim that the Nuremberg Code can be enforced on COVID-19 vaccines (and their advocates) because contrarians believe the vaccine(s) are experimental and lacked informed consent. These recycled and already debunked claims have risen to prominence yet again by John Campbell on YouTube who was once a bastion of light at the start of the pandemic, so without further ado let’s get into the article.
➡️ The YouTube Video
The YouTube video in question [1] was uploaded on 13th Sept 2023, where John Campbell explains the correct process of the Nuremberg Code. John goes off the rails when he starts to falsely claim that there was a lack of “informed consent” & the vaccines were/are experimental. I will take a look at these claims in further depth.
References: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oZAPk_Xpow&t=774s
➡️ Debunking the Claims
Below will be empirical evidence that debunks previous claims of the Nuremberg Trials & Code falsely being associated with the Covid-19-related vaccines:
- Nuremberg Code & Experimental Vaccine Claim
Quite simply put, the Nuremberg Code does not apply to COVID-19 vaccines because it is a set of medical experimentation guidelines that relate to research, where the emphasis of informed consent is on “preventing research participants from being harmed”. As quoted from an NCBI-indexed study (originally published by ScienceDirect) states: “COVID-19 vaccines used in practice and involved in vaccination mandates are either authorized or fully approved by national regulatory authorities. Hence, they are not experimental and not part of research, and thus not covered by the Nuremberg Code. Taking approved medicines prescribed or used as a matter of regular medical or public health practice does not constitute an experiment or research in any common understanding of the terms.” [1]
As seen above, these vaccines are NOT experimental or applicable to the Nuremberg Code, in addition, COVID-19-related vaccines came out from Phase 3 of Clinical Trials well over 2 years ago. Pfizer [2], Moderna [3], AstraZeneca [4] & Johnson & Johnson [5] having released their peer-reviewed data over 2 years ago. This further disproves the experimental vaccine claims.
Furthermore, within the US, UK and abroad, research done into COVID-19 vaccines was done in accordance with laws and regulations on human subjects research [6].
UK/other countries law & regulations:
The vaccine and the trials used to test it must meet the regulations laid down by the following authorities:
- ICH-GCP (International Conference on Harmonisation of Good Clinical Practice) - international ethical and scientific quality standard for designing, conducting, recording and reporting trials that involve the participation of human subjects
- Declaration of Helsinki (1964; 2008) - Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects
- EU Clinical Trials Directive - enshrined in UK law by the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations (2004)
- RCPCH Guidelines for the ethical conduct of medical research involving children (2000)
- The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) provides advice on the safety, efficacy and quality of vaccines. CHM is the government’s independent expert scientific advisory body established in October 2005.
In addition, for trials in the UK, the vaccine and the trial must receive individual approval from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), while the trial itself must be approved by the following authorities:
- An NHS Research Ethics Committee (see more information on the NHS Health Research Authority website )
- The local NHS Research and Development office, supports and advises researchers in meeting the requirements of the UK regulatory framework (see more information on the framework )
- The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for certain types of trials
The above information can be found at Oxford Vaccine Group [7], there is a plethora of information ranging from detailed information on the various Phases of Clinical Trials to how they’re licensed & more.
References: [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10127050/
[2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
[3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2035389
[4] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32661-1/fulltext
[5] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2101544
[6] https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/index.html
[7] https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/vaccine-development#Regulatory-and-ethics-committees
- Informed Consent
The next false claim to re-emerge from previous online misinformation claims & recycled through John’s video is informed consent.
So what’s informed consent you may ask? It’s easily defined into one quoted sentence taken from a study indexed by the NCBI [1]: “Informed consent is a process in which a healthcare provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention”
Informed consent was done during the US trials via this “INFORMED CONSENT FORM AND AUTHORIZATION TO DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION” pdf file which was done by the NIH [2]. This had exact details of EVERYTHING to do with the vaccines, the protocols and what was expected.
In the UK Vaccine Trial participants must give their informed consent before they are entered into a trial. Under UK Law, Schedule 1 of the Clinical Trials Regulations are the requirements for consent [3]. The MRC (Medical Research Council) has example consent form templates [4] which are given to participants before a trial even starts. An NHS website provides templates to help researchers design study information sheets and consent forms [5].
References: [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430827/
[2] https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ProvidedDocs/44/NCT04785144/ICF_000.pdf
[3] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/1031/schedule/1/made
[4] https://www.hra-decisiontools.org.uk/consent/examples.html
[5] https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/researchers/planning/documents/participant-information-sheet.pdf
➡️ ️Conclusion
As can be seen above, informed consent would’ve been given by all vaccine trial participants, as they read detailed consent form(s) about the trials & other important information. Under UK/US law informed consent must be obtained first. The empirical evidence shown here, concludes that COVID-19-related vaccines are not experimental or applicable to the Nuremberg Code. Please share this article with others to inform them of the objective facts, not what they merely hear online.
💥 Thanks for reading, Lawrence. Please consider a small contribution, in the form of a beer as all articles are created in my small amount of spare time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LawrenceRob