Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311250169
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BONN, GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
The university and an American official defended the research as vital in the effort to make cars safer for the living.
The revelation that the bodies of 200 adults and eight children were used in car safety research since 1975 created a public uproar in Germany, a country sensitive to medical experiments because of those carried out by the Nazis.
Klaus von Trotha, research minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg state, where the university is located, stopped short of ordering a halt to the tests. But he told Heidelberg to deliver a comprehensive report on how many tests were conducted and to prove relatives gave permission for use of the corpses.
"Our constitution guarantees freedom in scientific research. But the constitution also guarantees the protection of human dignity," Trotha said on German television. He said he had not known of the research before he read about it in a newspaper story Tuesday.
The university will comply with Trotha's order, but has no intention of suspending research using adult bodies, spokesman Michael Schwarz said. He said tests with children's corpses ended in 1989.
German law permits the use of cadavers for research as long as relatives' consent is obtained.
The Vatican found that alarming.
"A body cannot be used as a guinea pig for auto tests. What happened is repugnant to the conscience," said a commentary by L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
In Washington, George Parker, associate administrator for research at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said tests on corpses give important information on impact injuries that cannot be obtained other ways.
"We need that type of data to find out how people are injured in crashes, to know what areas of the body are injured under what conditions," he said.
The data is then used to set measuring devices on crash dummies that help test what happens when new car models crash. "If you didn't do this testing, you wouldn't know what limits to put on dummies for crash tests," he said.
Parker said his agency finances some of Heidelberg's research as well as similar tests at the universities of Virginia and Wisconsin, spending about $2.5 million a year on such work. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta supported crash tests at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Schwarz, the spokesman for Heidelberg University, said the research on crash injuries conducted by the school's forensic pathology institute has saved lives.
"This is a completely normal matter for the researchers involved, but apparently some people don't like thinking about life and death," Schwarz said. "I suspect this sensitivity has something to do with Germany's past."
He said the tests using eight children's bodies helped improve car-safety seats. Tests using adult bodies has led to better seat belts, he said.
Relatives' consent has been obtained in every single case, Schwarz said.
Getting permission is not easy, he added. "It's sometimes difficult to persuade someone that this is necessary for saving human lives."
by CNB