The Nazi ethnographic research of Georg Leibbrandt and Karl Stumpp in Ukraine, and its North American legacy

Scholars have recently debated the topic of German academics who directly or indirectly served the Nazi machinery of death and who then went on to successful professional careers after the war. This article examines the activities of two prominent émigré scholars, Drs. Georg Leibbrandt (1899-1982) and Karl Stumpp (1896-1982). These Ukrainian Germans emigrated to Germany after World War 1. In America, most members of the Russian-German ethnic community never knew that Leibbrandt had represented Alfred Rosenberg's Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, or that under his supervision Stumpp led a Sonderkommando in Ukraine. This unit classified hundreds of villages, indirectly documenting the annihilation of Jews and others. The authors conclude that one consequence of Leibbrandt's and Stumpp's "return to normalcy" after the war was the growing fascination with genealogical research that affected the Russian-German ethnic community in North America-research partly based on 1930s and 1940s Nazi racial record-keeping.

Protecting communities in research: current guidelines and limits of extrapolation

As genetic research increasingly focuses on communities, there have been calls for extending research protections to them. We critically examine guidelines developed to protect aboriginal communities and consider their applicability to other communities. These guidelines are based on a model of researcher-community partnership and span the phases of a research project, from protocol development to publication. The complete list of 23 protections may apply to those few non-aboriginal communities, such as the Amish, that are highly cohesive. Although some protections may be applicable to less-cohesive communities, such as Ashkenazi Jews, analysis suggests substantial problems in extending these guidelines in toto beyond the aboriginal communities for which they were developed.

Financial disclosure by clinical investigators; correction--FDA. Final rule; correction

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register of February 2, 1998 (63 FR 5233). The document issued regulations requiring the sponsor of any drug, including a biological product, or device marketing application (applicant), to submit certain information covering the compensation to, and financial interests of, any clinical investigator conducting certain clinical studies. The document was published with an error. This document corrects that error.

Financial disclosure by clinical investigators--FDA. Final rule

The food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing regulations requiring the sponsor of any drug, including a biological product, or device marketing application (applicant), to submit certain information concerning the compensation to, and financial interests of any clinical investigator conducting certain clinical studies. This requirement will apply to any covered clinical study of a drug or device submitted in a marketing application that the applicant or FDA relies on to establish that the product is effective, including studies that show equivalence to an effective product, or that make a significant contribution to the demonstration of safety. This final rule requires applicants to certify to the absence of certain financial interests of clinical investigators and/or disclose those financial interests, as required, when covered clinical studies are submitted to FDA in support of product marketing. This regulation is intended to ensure that financial interests and arrangements of clinical investigators that could affect reliability of data submitted to FDA in support of product marketing are identified and disclosed by the sponsor of any drug, biological product, or device marketing application. If the applicant does not include certification or disclosure, or both, if required, or does not certify that it was not possible to obtain the information, the agency may refuse to file the application. FDA intends to propose to extend these requirements to submissions for marketing approval related to human foods, animal foods, and animal drugs in a subsequent issue of the Federal Register.

The consequences of knowing: ethical and legal liabilities in illicit drug research

Ethnographic research into illicit drug use necessarily involves the researcher being aware of illegal activities. Information about illegal activities is obtained through the establishment of confidential relationships with research participants; however there are legal and ethical obligations on researchers to breach confidential relationships formed in the research environment. The recent suspension of a research project by an Institutional Ethics Committee serves to illustrate some of the processes that form the research process, shape the boundaries to legitimate knowledge and some of the consequences of knowing about illegal activities.