Unethical human experimentation in the United States

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Numerous experiments which are performed on human test subjects in the United States are considered

unethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

, because they are performed without the knowledge or informed consent of the test subjects. Such tests have been performed throughout

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...

, but some of them are ongoing. The experiments include the exposure of humans to many chemical and biological weapons (including infections with deadly or debilitating diseases),

human radiation experiments Since the discovery of ionizing radiation, a number of human radiation experiments have been performed to understand the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, specifically with the element plutonium. Ex ...

, injections of toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

experiments, tests which involve mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of other experiments. Many of these tests are performed on children, the sick, and mentally disabled individuals, often under the guise of "medical treatment". In many of the studies, a large portion of the subjects were poor, racial minorities, or prisoners. Many of these experiments violated US law. Some others were sponsored by government agencies or rogue elements thereof, including the

Centers for Disease Control The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

, the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is th ...

, and the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, or they were sponsored by private corporations which were involved in military activities. The human research programs were usually highly secretive and performed without the knowledge or authorization of Congress, and in many cases information about them was not released until many years after the studies had been performed. The ethical, professional, and legal implications of this in the United States medical and scientific community were quite significant, and led to many institutions and policies that attempted to ensure that future human subject research in the United States would be ethical and legal. Public outrage in the late 20th century over the discovery of government experiments on human subjects led to numerous congressional investigations and hearings, including the Church Committee and

Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States {{R from move ...

{{R from move ...

, both of 1975, and the 1994 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, among others.

Surgical experiments

Throughout the 1840s,

J. Marion Sims James Marion Sims (January 25, 1813November 13, 1883) was an American physician in the field of surgery. His most famous work was the development of a surgical technique for the repair of vesicovaginal fistula, a severe complication of obstruc ...

, who is often referred to as "the father of gynecology," performed surgical experiments on enslaved African women, without anesthesia. The women— one of whom was operated on 30 times— suffered from infections and many failed surgeries before they were finally cured. The period during which Sims operated on female slaves, between 1845 and 1849, was one during which the new practice of anesthesia was not universally accepted as safe and effective. To test one of his theories about the causes of

trismus Trismus, commonly called ''lockjaw'' as associated with tetanus, is a condition of limited jaw mobility. It may be caused by spasm of the muscles of mastication or a variety of other causes. Temporary trismus occurs much more frequently than perma ...

in infants, Sims performed experiments where he used a shoemaker's awl to move around the skull bones of the babies of enslaved women.Washington, 2008
pp. 62–63
/ref> It has been claimed that he addicted the women in his surgical experiments to

morphine Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a pain medication, and is also commonly used recreationally, or to make other illicit opioids. T ...

, only providing the drugs after surgery was already complete, to make them more compliant.Washington, 2008
pp. 66
/ref> A contrary view is presented by the gynecologic surgeon and anthropologist L.L. Wall: "Sims' use of postoperative opium appears to have been well supported by the therapeutic practices of his day, and the regimen that he used was enthusiastically supported by many contemporary surgeons." In 1874, Mary Rafferty, an Irish servant woman, came to Dr. Roberts Bartholow of the

Good Samaritan Hospital Good Samaritan Hospital or Good Samaritan Medical Center may refer to: India *Good Samaritan Hospital (Panamattom), Koprakalam, Panamattom, Kerala *Good Samaritan Centre, Mutholath Nagar, Cherpunkal, Kottyam, Kerala United States *Banner - Univer ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, Ohio for treatment of a lesion on her head. The lesion was diagnosed as a cancerous ulcer and surgical treatments were attempted. Bartholow saw Rafferty's condition as terminal but felt there was a research opportunity. He inserted electrode needles into her exposed brain matter to gauge her responses. This was done with no intention of treating her. Although Rafferty came out of the coma caused by the experiment three days later, she died from a massive seizure the following day. Bartholow described his experiment as follows: In the subsequent autopsy, Bartholow noted that some brain damage had occurred due to the electrodes but that she had died due to the cancer. Bartholow was criticized by fellow physicians and the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's sta ...

formally condemned his experiments as he had caused direct harm to the patient, not in an attempt to treat her, but solely to gain knowledge. Additional issues were raised with the consent obtained. Although she gave "cheerful assent" to the procedure, she was described as "feeble-minded" (which may have been in part due to effects of the tumor on her brain) and likely did not fully understand. Bartholow apologized for his actions and expressed regret that some knowledge had been gained "at the expense of some injury to the patient."Lederer, 1997
pp. 7–8
/ref> In 1896, Dr. Arthur Wentworth performed spinal taps on 29 young children, without the knowledge or consent of their parents, at Children's Hospital Boston (now

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...

) in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts to discover whether doing so would be harmful.Grodin & Glantz, 1994
pp. 7–11
/ref> From 1913 to 1951, Dr. Leo Stanley, chief surgeon at the

San Quentin Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

, performed a wide variety of experiments on hundreds of prisoners at San Quentin. Many of the experiments involved testicular implants, where Stanley would take the

testicle A testicle or testis (plural testes) is the male reproductive gland or gonad in all bilaterians, including humans. It is homologous to the female ovary. The functions of the testes are to produce both sperm and androgens, primarily testoste ...

s out of

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

prisoners and surgically implant them into living prisoners. In other experiments, he attempted to implant the testicles of

rams In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)boars The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is n ...

into living prisoners. Stanley also performed various

eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...

experiments, and forced sterilizations on San Quentin prisoners. Stanley believed that his experiments would rejuvenate old men, control crime (which he believed had biological causes), and prevent the "unfit" from reproducing.Hornblum, 1998
p. 79
/ref> From 1955 to 1960, Sonoma State Hospital in northern California served as a permanent drop-off location for mentally disabled children diagnosed with

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sens ...

or lesser disorders. The children subsequently underwent painful experimentation without adult consent. Many were given spinal taps "for which they received no direct benefit." Reporters of ''60 Minutes'' learned that in these five years, the brain of every child with cerebral palsy who died at Sonoma State was removed and studied without parental consent.

Pathogens, disease and biological warfare agents

Late 19th century

In the 1880s, in Hawaii, a Californian physician working at a hospital for

lepers Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve dama ...

injected six girls under the age of 12 with syphilis. In 1895, New York City pediatrician Henry Heiman intentionally infected two mentally disabled boys—one four-year-old and one sixteen-year-old—with

gonorrhea Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with u ...

as part of a medical experiment. A review of the medical literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries found more than 40 reports of experimental infections with gonorrheal culture, including some where gonorrheal organisms were applied to the eyes of sick children.Shamoo & Resnick, 2009
pp. 238–239
/ref>

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

doctors in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

infected five prisoners with bubonic plague and induced

beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, ...

in 29 prisoners; four of the test subjects died as a result.Cina & Perper, 2010
p. 89
/ref> In 1906, Professor Richard P. Strong of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

intentionally infected 24 Filipino prisoners with cholera, which had somehow become contaminated with bubonic plague. He did this without the consent of the patients, and without informing them of what he was doing. All of the subjects became sick and 13 died.Hornblum, 1998
pp. 76–77
/ref>

Early 20th century

In 1908, three Philadelphia researchers infected dozens of children with

tuberculin Tuberculin, also known as purified protein derivative, is a combination of proteins that are used in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. This use is referred to as the tuberculin skin test and is recommended only for those at high risk. Reliable admi ...

at St. Vincent Orphanage in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, Pennsylvania, causing permanent blindness in some of the children and painful lesions and inflammation of the eyes in many of the others. In the study, they refer to the children as "material used". In 1909, Frank Crazier Knowles published a study in the '' Journal of the American Medical Association'' describing how he had deliberately infected two children in an orphanage with ''

Molluscum contagiosum Molluscum contagiosum (MC), sometimes called water warts, is a viral infection of the skin that results in small raised pink lesions with a dimple in the center. They may become itchy or sore, and occur singularly or in groups. Any area of the sk ...

''—a virus that causes wart-like growths but usually disappears entirely—after an outbreak in the orphanage, to study the disease. In 1911, Dr.

Hideyo Noguchi , also known as , was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease. Early life Noguchi Hideyo whose childhood name was Seisaku Noguchi was born to a family of farm ...

of the

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classi ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City injected 146 hospital patients (some of whom were children) with a syphilis extract. He was later sued by the parents of some of the child subjects, who allegedly contracted syphilis as a result of his experiments. The

Tuskegee syphilis experiment The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Cente ...

("Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male") was a

clinical study Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dietar ...

conducted between 1932 and 1972 in

Tuskegee, Alabama Tuskegee () is a city in Macon County, Alabama, United States. It was founded and laid out in 1833 by General Thomas Simpson Woodward, a Creek War veteran under Andrew Jackson, and made the county seat that year. It was incorporated in 1843. ...

, by the U.S. Public Health Service. In the experiment, 399 impoverished black males who had syphilis were offered "treatment" by the researchers, who did not tell the test subjects that they had syphilis and did not give them treatment for the disease, but rather just studied them to chart the progress of the disease. By 1947, penicillin became available as treatment, but those running the study prevented study participants from receiving treatment elsewhere, lying to them about their true condition, so that they could observe the effects of syphilis on the human body. By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. 28 of the original 399 men had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children were born with

congenital syphilis Congenital syphilis is syphilis present ''in utero'' and at birth, and occurs when a child is born to a mother with syphilis. Untreated early syphilis infections results in a high risk of poor pregnancy outcomes, including saddle nose, lower extr ...

. The study was not shut down until 1972, when its existence was leaked to the press, forcing the researchers to stop in the face of a public outcry.

1940s

In 1941, at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, virologists Thomas Francis,

Jonas Salk Jonas Edward Salk (; born Jonas Salk; October 28, 1914June 23, 1995) was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New ...

and other researchers deliberately infected patients at several Michigan mental institutions with the influenza virus by spraying the virus into their nasal passages.Meiklejohn, Gordon N., M.D. "Commission on Influenza." in ''Histories' of the Commissions'' Ed. Theodore E. Woodward, M.D., The Armed Forced Epidemiological Board, 1994

Francis Peyton Rous Francis Peyton Rous () (October 5, 1879 – February 16, 1970) was an American pathologist at the Rockefeller University known for his works in oncoviruses, blood transfusion and physiology of digestion. A medical graduate from the Johns Hopki ...

, based at the Rockefeller Institute and editor of the ''

Journal of Experimental Medicine ''Journal of Experimental Medicine'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by Rockefeller University Press that publishes research papers and commentaries on the physiological, pathological, and molecular mechanisms that encompass th ...

,'' wrote the following to Francis regarding the experiments: Rous closely monitored the articles he published since the 1930s, when revival of the anti-vivisectionist movement raised pressure against certain human experimentation. In 1941, Dr. William C. Black inoculated a twelve-month-old baby with

herpes Herpes simplex is a viral infection caused by the herpes simplex virus. Infections are categorized based on the part of the body infected. Oral herpes involves the face or mouth. It may result in small blisters in groups often called cold ...

who was "offered as a volunteer". He submitted his research to the ''Journal of Experimental Medicine'' which rejected the findings due to the ethically questionable research methods used in the study. Rous called the experiment "an abuse of power, an infringement of the rights of an individual, and not excusable because the illness which followed had implications for science."Grodin & Glantz, 1994
p. 14
/ref> The study was later published in the '' Journal of Pediatrics''. The

Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study The Stateville Penitentiary malaria study was a controlled but ethically questionable study of the effects of malaria on prisoners of Stateville Penitentiary near Joliet, Illinois, in the 1940s, conducted by the Department of Medicine at the Univer ...

was a controlled study of the effects of

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

on the prisoners of Stateville Penitentiary near

Joliet, Illinois Joliet ( ) is a city in Will and Kendall counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, southwest of Chicago. It is the county seat of Will County. At the 2020 census, the city was the third-largest in Illinois, with a population of 150,362. Hist ...

, beginning in the 1940s. The study was conducted by the Department of Medicine (now the

Pritzker School of Medicine The Pritzker School of Medicine is the M.D.-granting unit of the Biological Sciences Division of the University of Chicago. It is located on the university's main campus in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago and matriculated its ...

) at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in conjunction with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and the U.S. State Department. At the

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

, Nazi doctors cited the precedent of the malaria experiments as part of their defense. The study continued at Stateville Penitentiary for 29 years. In related studies from 1944 to 1946, Dr. Alf Alving, a

nephrologist Nephrology (from Greek'' nephros'' "kidney", combined with the suffix ''-logy'', "the study of") is a specialty of adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function ( ...

and professor at the University of Chicago Medical School, purposely infected psychiatric patients at the Illinois State Hospital with malaria so that he could test experimental treatments on them. In a 1946 to 1948 study in Guatemala, U.S. researchers used prostitutes to infect prison inmates, insane asylum patients, and Guatemalan soldiers with syphilis and other

sexually transmitted diseases Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...

to test the effectiveness of penicillin in treating the STDs. They later tried infecting people with "direct inoculations made from syphilis bacteria poured into the men's penises and on forearms and faces that were slightly abraded ... or in a few cases through spinal punctures". Approximately 700 people were infected as part of the study (including

orphan An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...

children). The study was sponsored by the

Public Health Service In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

, the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, the Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

Pan American Health Organization The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is an international public health agency working to improve the health and living standards of the people of the Americas. It is part of the United Nations system, serving as the Regional Office for ...

) and the Guatemalan government. The team was led by

John Charles Cutler John Charles Cutler (June 29, 1915 – February 8, 2003) was a senior surgeon, and the acting chief of the venereal disease program in the United States Public Health Service. After his death, his involvement in several controversial and unethi ...

, who later participated in the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Cutler chose to do the study in Guatemala because he would not have been permitted to do it in the United States. In 2010 when the research was revealed, the U.S. officially apologized to Guatemala for the studies. A lawsuit has been launched against

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol Myers Squibb Company (BMS) is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in New York City, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consistently ranks on the ''Fortune'' 500 list of the lar ...

and the Rockefeller Foundation for alleged involvement in the study.

1950s

In 1950, to conduct a simulation of a biological warfare attack, the U.S. Navy sprayed large quantities of the bacteria ''

Serratia marcescens ''Serratia marcescens'' () is a species of rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria in the family Yersiniaceae. It is a facultative anaerobe and an opportunistic pathogen in humans. It was discovered in 1819 by Bartolomeo Bizio in Padua, Italy.Serra ...

'' – considered harmless at the time – over the city of San Francisco during a project called

Operation Sea-Spray Operation Sea-Spray was a 1950 U.S. Navy secret biological warfare experiment in which ''Serratia marcescens'' and '' Bacillus globigii'' bacteria were sprayed over the San Francisco Bay Area in California, in order to determine how vulnerable a c ...

. Numerous citizens contracted pneumonia-like illnesses, and at least one person died as a result.Moreno, 2001
pp. 233–234
/ref> The family of the person who died sued the government for gross negligence, but a federal judge ruled in favor of the government in 1981. ''Serratia'' tests were continued until at least 1969. Also in 1950, Dr. Joseph Stokes of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

deliberately infected 200 female prisoners with

viral hepatitis Viral hepatitis is liver inflammation due to a viral infection. It may present in acute form as a recent infection with relatively rapid onset, or in chronic form. The most common causes of viral hepatitis are the five unrelated hepatotropic vi ...

.Hornblum, 1998
p. 91
/ref> From the 1950s to 1972, mentally disabled children at the

Willowbrook State School Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities located in the Willowbrook neighborhood on Staten Island in New York City from 1947 until 1987. The school was designed for 4,000, but by 1965 ...

in Staten Island, New York, were intentionally infected with viral hepatitis, for research whose purpose was to help discover a

vaccine A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.

. From 1963 to 1966, Saul Krugman of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

promised the parents of mentally disabled children that their children would be enrolled into Willowbrook in exchange for signing a consent form for procedures that he claimed were "vaccinations". In reality, the procedures involved deliberately infecting children with viral hepatitis by feeding them an extract made from the feces of patients infected with the disease. In 1952,

Chester M. Southam Chester Milton Southam (October 4, 1919 – April 15, 2002) was an immunologist and oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell University Medical College; he went to Thomas Jefferson University in 1971 and worked there unti ...

, a Sloan-Kettering Institute researcher, injected live cancer cells, known as

HeLa HeLa (; also Hela or hela) is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line is derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, named after Henrietta ...

cells, into prisoners at the

Ohio State Penitentiary The Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) is a 502-inmate capacity supermax Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction prison in Youngstown, Ohio. Throughout the last two centuries, there have been two institutions with the name Ohio Penitent ...

and cancer patients. Also at Sloan-Kettering, 300 healthy females were injected with live cancer cells without being told. The doctors stated that they knew at the time that it might cause cancer.Goliszek, 2003: p. 228 In 1953, Dr.

Frank Olson Frank Rudolph Emmanuel Olson (July 17, 1910 – November 28, 1953) was an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist, and an employee of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) who worked at Camp Detrick (now ...

and several other colleagues were unknowingly dosed with

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

as part of a CIA experiment, MK-ULTRA. Olson died nine days later after falling to his death from a hotel window under suspicious circumstances. ''

The San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The p ...

'', December 17, 1979, p. 5 reported a claim by the Church of Scientology that the CIA conducted an open-air biological warfare experiment in 1955 near

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

, and elsewhere in Florida with whooping cough bacteria. It was alleged that the experiment tripled the whooping cough infections in Florida to over one-thousand cases and caused whooping cough deaths in the state to increase from one to 12 over the previous year. This claim has been cited in a number of later sources, although these added no further supporting evidence. During the 1950s, the United States conducted a series of field tests using entomological weapons (EW).

Operation Big Itch Operation Big Itch was a U.S. entomological warfare field test using uninfected fleas to determine their coverage and survivability as a vector for biological agents. Bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, usually resulting from the ...

, in 1954, was designed to test munitions loaded with uninfected fleas ( ''Xenopsylla cheopis''). In May 1955 over 300,000 uninfected mosquitoes (''

Aedes aegypti ''Aedes aegypti'', the yellow fever mosquito, is a mosquito that can spread dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika fever, Mayaro and yellow fever viruses, and other disease agents. The mosquito can be recognized by black and white markings on its le ...

'') were dropped over parts of the U.S. state of Georgia to determine if the air-dropped mosquitoes could survive to take meals from humans. The mosquito tests were known as

Operation Big Buzz Operation Big Buzz was a U.S. military entomological warfare field test conducted in the U.S. state of Georgia in 1955. The tests involved dispersing over 300,000 mosquitoes from aircraft and through ground dispersal methods. Operation Operation B ...

. The U.S. engaged in at least two other EW testing programs,

Operation Drop Kick Operation Drop Kick was conducted between April and November 1956 by the US Army Chemical CorpsRose, William H.An Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as a Potential Danger to the United States and European NATO Nations, U.S. Army Test and Evaluation ...

and

Operation May Day Operation May Day was a series of entomological warfare (EW) tests conducted by the U.S. military in Savannah, Georgia in 1956. Operation Operation May Day involved a series of EW tests from April to November 1956. The tests were designed to reve ...

1960s

In 1963, 22 elderly patients at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York City were injected with live cancer cells by

, who in 1952 had done the same to prisoners at the Ohio State Prison, to "discover the secret of how healthy bodies fight the invasion of malignant cells". The administration of the hospital attempted to cover the study up, but the New York medical licensing board ultimately placed Southam on probation for one year. Two years later, the American Cancer Society elected him as their vice president.Loue, 2000
pp. 26–29
/ref> From 1963 to 1969, as part of Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD), the U.S. Army performed tests which involved spraying several U.S. ships with various biological and chemical warfare agents, while thousands of U.S. military personnel were aboard the ships. The personnel were not notified of the tests, and were not given any protective clothing. Chemicals tested on the U.S. military personnel included the nerve gases VX and Sarin, toxic chemicals such as zinc cadmium sulfide and sulfur dioxide, and a variety of biological agents. In 1966, the U.S. Army released '' Bacillus globigii'' into the tunnels of the New York City Subway system, as part of a field experiment called ''A Study of the Vulnerability of Subway Passengers in New York City to Covert Attack with Biological Agents''. The Chicago subway system was also subject to a similar experiment by the Army.

Human radiation experiments

Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of

to determine the effects of

atomic radiation Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...

and

radioactive contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirab ...

on the human body, generally on people who were poor, sick, or powerless.Loue, 2000
pp. 19–23
/ref> Most of these tests were performed, funded, or supervised by the

, Atomic Energy Commission, or various other

U.S. federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fed ...

agencies. The experiments included a wide array of studies, involving things like feeding radioactive food to mentally disabled children or

conscientious objectors A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to objecti ...

, inserting

radium Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...

rods into the noses of schoolchildren, deliberately releasing radioactive chemicals over U.S. and Canadian cities, measuring the health effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests, injecting pregnant women and babies with radioactive chemicals, and

irradiating Irradiation is the process by which an object is exposed to radiation. The exposure can originate from various sources, including natural sources. Most frequently the term refers to ionizing radiation, and to a level of radiation that will serve ...

the testicles of prison inmates, amongst other things. Much information about these programs was classified and kept secret. In 1986, the

United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce The Committee on Energy and Commerce is one of the oldest standing committees of the United States House of Representatives. Established in 1795, it has operated continuously—with various name changes and jurisdictional changes—for more tha ...

released a report entitled ''American Nuclear Guinea Pigs : Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens''.''American Nuclear Guinea Pigs : Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens''
. United States. Congress. House. of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power, published by U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986, Identifier Y 4.En 2/3:99-NN, Electronic Publication Date 2010, at the University of Nevada, Reno, unr.edu In the 1990s,

Eileen Welsome Eileen Welsome (born March 12, 1951) is an American journalist and author. She received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1994 while a reporter for ''The Albuquerque Tribune'' for a 3-part story titled "The Plutonium Experiment" published ...

's reports on radiation testing for ''

The Albuquerque Tribune ''The Albuquerque Tribune'' was an afternoon newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, founded in 1922 by Carlton Cole Magee as ''Magee's Independent''. It was published in the afternoon and evening Monday through Saturday. Scott Ware served as ed ...

'' prompted the creation of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments by executive order of president

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

to monitor government tests; it published results in 1995. Welsome later wrote a book called ''

The Plutonium Files ''The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War'' is a 1999 book by Eileen Welsome. It is a history of United States government-engineered radiation experiments on unwitting Americans, based on the Pulitzer Prize– ...

.''

Radioactive iodine experiments

In a 1949 operation called the " Green Run", the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) released

iodine-131 Iodine-131 (131I, I-131) is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nu ...

and

xenon-133 Naturally occurring xenon (54Xe) consists of seven stable isotopes and two very long-lived isotopes. Double electron capture has been observed in 124Xe (half-life ) and double beta decay in 136Xe (half-life ), which are among the longest measured ...

into the atmosphere near the

Hanford site The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW a ...

in Washington, which contaminated a area containing three small towns.Goliszek, 2003: pp. 130–131 In 1953, the AEC ran several studies at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

on the health effects of radioactive iodine in newborns and pregnant women. In one study, researchers gave pregnant women between of iodine-131, to study the women's aborted embryos in an attempt to discover at what stage, and to what extent, radioactive iodine crosses the

placental Placental mammals (infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupialia. Placentalia contains the vast majority of extant mammals, which are partly distinguishe ...

barrier. In another study, they gave 25 newborn babies (who were under 36 hours old and weighed from ) iodine-131, either by oral administration or through an injection, so that they could measure the amount of iodine in their thyroid glands, as iodine would go to that gland. In another AEC study, researchers at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine fed iodine-131 to 28 healthy infants through a gastric tube to test the concentration of iodine in the infants' thyroid glands.Goliszek, 2003: pp. 132–134 In 1953, the AEC sponsored a study to discover if radioactive iodine affected

premature Premature may refer to: * ''Premature'' (2014 film), an American comedy film * ''Premature'' (2019 film), an American romantic drama film * '' PREMature'', a 2015 British television drama miniseries See also * Premature aging, of an organism * ...

babies differently from full-term babies. In the experiment, researchers from

Harper Hospital Harper University Hospital is one of eight hospitals and institutes that compose the Detroit Medical Center. Harper offers services in a broad range of clinical areas, including cardiology, neurology, neurosurgery, organ transplant, plastic surge ...

in Detroit orally administered iodine-131 to 65 premature and full-term infants who weighed from . In Alaska, starting in August 1955, the AEC selected a total of 102 Inuit natives and Athapascan Indians who would be used to study the effects of radioactive iodine on thyroid tissue, particularly in cold environments. Over a two-year span, the test subjects were given doses of I-131 and samples of saliva, urine, blood, and thyroid tissue were collected from them. The purpose and risks of the radioactive iodine dosing, along with the collection of body fluid and tissue samples was not explained to the test subjects, and the AEC did not conduct any follow-up studies to monitor for long-term health effects. In an experiment in the 1960s, over 100 Alaskan citizens were continually exposed to radioactive iodine. In 1962, the Hanford site again released I-131, stationing test subjects along its path to record its effect on them. The AEC also recruited Hanford volunteers to ingest milk contaminated with I-131 during this time.

Uranium experiments

Between 1946 and 1947, researchers at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

injected

uranium-234 Uranium-234 (234U or U-234) is an isotope of uranium. In natural uranium and in uranium ore, 234U occurs as an indirect decay product of uranium-238, but it makes up only 0.0055% (55 parts per million) of the raw uranium because its half-lif ...

and

uranium-235 Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exi ...

in dosages ranging from 6.4 to 70.7

micrograms In the metric system, a microgram or microgramme is a unit of mass equal to one millionth () of a gram. The unit symbol is μg according to the International System of Units (SI); the recommended symbol in the United States and United Kingdom wh ...

per kilogram of body weight into six people to study how much uranium their kidneys could tolerate before becoming damaged.Goliszek, 2003: pp. 136–137 Between 1953 and 1957, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. William Sweet injected eleven terminally ill, comatose and semi-comatose patients with uranium in an experiment to determine, among other things, its viability as a

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...

treatment against brain tumors, which all but one of the patients had (one being a misdiagnosis). Sweet, who died in 2001, maintained that consent had been obtained from the patients and next of kin.Moreno, 2001
p. 132
/ref>

Plutonium experiments

From April 10, 1945, to July 18, 1947, eighteen people were injected with

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

as part of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. Doses administered ranged from 95 to 5,900 nanocuries.

Albert Stevens Albert Stevens (1887–1966), also known as patient CAL-1 and most radioactive human ever, was a house painter from Ohio who was subjected to an involuntary human radiation experiment and survived the highest known accumulated radiation dose in ...

, a man misdiagnosed with stomach cancer, received "treatment" for his "cancer" at the U.C. San Francisco Medical Center in 1945. Dr. Joseph Gilbert Hamilton, a Manhattan Project doctor in charge of the human experiments in California,
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, 1985 had Stevens injected with Plutonium-238, Pu-238 and Pu-239 without informed consent. Stevens never had cancer; a surgery to remove cancerous cells was highly successful in removing the

benign tumor A benign tumor is a mass of cells (tumor) that does not invade neighboring tissue or metastasize (spread throughout the body). Compared to malignant (cancerous) tumors, benign tumors generally have a slower growth rate. Benign tumors have re ...

, and he lived for another 20 years with the injected plutonium. Since Stevens received the highly radioactive Pu-238, his accumulated dose over his remaining life was higher than anyone has ever received: 64 Sv (6400 rem). Neither Albert Stevens nor any of his relatives were told that he never had cancer; they were led to believe that the experimental "treatment" had worked. His cremated remains were surreptitiously acquired by Argonne National Laboratory Center for Human Radiobiology in 1975 without the consent of surviving relatives. Some of the ashes were transferred to the National Human Radiobiology Tissue Repository at

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

, which keeps the remains of people who died with

radioisotopes A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...

in their body. Three patients at Billings Hospital at the

were injected with plutonium. In 1946, six employees of a Chicago

metallurgical Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

lab were given water that was contaminated with plutonium-239 so that researchers could study how plutonium is absorbed into the

digestive tract The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans and ...

. An eighteen-year-old woman at an upstate New York hospital, expecting to be treated for a

pituitary gland In vertebrate anatomy, the pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is an endocrine gland, about the size of a chickpea and weighing, on average, in humans. It is a protrusion off the bottom of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain. The ...

disorder, was injected with

Experiments involving other radioactive materials

Immediately after World War II, researchers at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

gave 829 pregnant mothers in Tennessee what they were told were "vitamin drinks" that would improve the health of their babies. The mixtures contained radioactive iron and the researchers were determining how fast the radioisotope crossed into the

placenta The placenta is a temporary embryonic and later fetal organ that begins developing from the blastocyst shortly after implantation. It plays critical roles in facilitating nutrient, gas and waste exchange between the physically separate mate ...

. Four of the women's babies died from cancers as a result of the experiments, and the women experienced rashes, bruises, anemia, hair/tooth loss, and cancer. From 1946 to 1953, at the Walter E. Fernald State School in Massachusetts, in an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the

Quaker Oats The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago. It has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001. History Precursor miller companies In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. Sc ...

corporation, 73

mentally disabled Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

children were fed oatmeal containing radioactive

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar t ...

and other

radioisotope A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...

s, to track "how nutrients were digested". The children were not told that they were being fed radioactive chemicals; they were told by hospital staff and researchers that they were joining a "science club".Goliszek, 2003: p. 139 The University of California Hospital in San Francisco exposed 29 patients, some with

rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are invol ...

, to total body irradiation (100–300 rad dose) to obtain data for the military. In the 1950s, researchers at the

Medical College of Virginia The VCU Medical Center is Virginia Commonwealth University's medical campus located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, in the Court End neighborhood. VCU Medical Center used to be known as the Medical College of Virginia (MCV), which merged with the ...

performed experiments on severe burn victims, most of them poor and black, without their knowledge or consent, with funding from the Army and in collaboration with the AEC. In the experiments, the subjects were exposed to additional burning, experimental antibiotic treatment, and injections of radioactive isotopes. The amount of radioactive

phosphorus-32 Phosphorus-32 (32P) is a radioactive isotope of phosphorus. The nucleus of phosphorus-32 contains 15 protons and 17 neutrons, one more neutron than the most common isotope of phosphorus, phosphorus-31. Phosphorus-32 only exists in small quantiti ...

injected into some of the patients, , was 50 times the "acceptable" dose for a healthy individual; for people with severe burns, this likely led to significantly increased death rates.Eckart, 2006
p. 263
/ref> Between 1948 and 1954, funded by the federal government, researchers at the

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...

inserted radium rods into the noses of 582

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Maryland schoolchildren as an alternative to

adenoidectomy Adenoidectomy is the surgical removal of the adenoid for reasons which include impaired breathing through the nose, chronic infections, or recurrent earaches. The effectiveness of removing the adenoids in children to improve recurrent nasal sympto ...

.Cherbonnier, Alice (October 1, 1997
"Nasal Radium Irradiation of Children Has Health Fallout"
''Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel'' (Retrieved February 19, 2010) Similar experiments were performed on over 7,000 U.S. Army and Navy personnel during World War II. Nasal radium irradiation became a standard medical treatment and was used in over two and a half million Americans. In another study at the Walter E. Fernald State School, in 1956, researchers gave mentally disabled children radioactive calcium orally and intravenously. They also injected radioactive chemicals into malnourished babies and then collected

cerebrospinal fluid Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a clear, colorless body fluid found within the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord of all vertebrates. CSF is produced by specialised ependymal cells in the choroid plexus of the ventricles of the ...

for analysis from their brains and spines.Goliszek, 2003: p. 253 In 1961 and 1962, ten

Utah State Prison Utah State Prison (USP) was one of two prisons managed by the Utah Department of Corrections' Division of Institutional Operations. It was located in Draper, Utah, United States, about southwest of Salt Lake City.Utah Department of Correc ...

inmates had blood samples taken which were mixed with radioactive chemicals and reinjected back into their bodies. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission funded the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

to administer

radium-224 Radium (88Ra) has no stable or nearly stable isotopes, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. The longest lived, and most common, isotope of radium is 226Ra with a half-life of . 226Ra occurs in the decay chain of 238U (often referred ...

and thorium-234 to 20 people between 1961 and 1965. Many were chosen from the Age Center of New England and had volunteered for "research projects on aging". Doses were for radium and for thorium. In a 1967 study that was published in the ''Journal of Clinical Investigation'', pregnant women were injected with radioactive cortisol to see if it would cross the placental barrier and affect the

fetuses A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

Fallout research

In 1957, atmospheric nuclear explosions in Nevada, which were part of

Operation Plumbbob Operation Plumbbob was a series of nuclear tests that were conducted between May 28 and October 7, 1957, at the Nevada Test Site, following '' Project 57'', and preceding '' Project 58/58A''. Background The operation consisted of 29 explosion ...

were later determined to have released enough radiation to have caused from 11,000 to 212,000 excess cases of

thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck. C ...

among U.S. citizens who were exposed to

fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

from the explosions, leading to between 1,100 and 21,000 deaths. – deaths taken from 90% survival rate, applied to # of cases Early in the Cold War, in studies known as Project GABRIEL and Project SUNSHINE, researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia tried to determine how much nuclear fallout would be required to make the Earth uninhabitable. They realized that atmospheric nuclear testing had provided them an opportunity to investigate this. Such tests had dispersed

worldwide, and examination of human bodies could reveal how readily it was taken up and hence how much damage it caused. Of particular interest was

strontium-90 Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and ...

in the bones. Infants were the primary focus, as they would have had a full opportunity to absorb the new contaminants. As a result of this conclusion, researchers began a program to collect human bodies and bones from all over the world, with a particular focus on infants. The bones were cremated and the ashes analyzed for radioisotopes. This project was kept secret primarily because it would be a

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

disaster; as a result parents and family were not told what was being done with the body parts of their relatives. These studies should not be confused with the

Baby Tooth Survey The Baby Tooth Survey was initiated by the Greater St. Louis Citizens' Committee for Nuclear Information in conjunction with Saint Louis University and the Washington University School of Dental Medicine as a means of determining the effects of nuc ...

, which was undertaken during the same time period.

Irradiation experiments

Between 1960 and 1971, the Department of Defense funded non-consensual whole body radiation experiments on mostly poor and black cancer patients, who were not told what was being done to them. Patients were told that they were receiving a "treatment" that might cure their cancer, but

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...

was trying to determine the effects of high levels of radiation on the human body. One of the doctors involved in the experiments was worried about litigation by the patients. He referred to them only by their initials on the medical reports. He did this so that, in his words, "there will be no means by which the patients can ever connect themselves up with the report", to prevent "either adverse publicity or litigation". From 1960 to 1971, Dr. Eugene Saenger, funded by the

Defense Atomic Support Agency The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) for countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosives). Acc ...

, performed whole body radiation experiments on more than 90 poor, black, advanced stage cancer patients with inoperable tumors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center during the Cincinnati Radiation Experiments. He forged consent forms, and did not inform the patients of the risks of irradiation. The patients were given 100 or more rads (1 Gy) of whole-body radiation, which in many caused intense pain and vomiting. Critics have questioned the medical rationale for this study, and contend that the main purpose of the research was to study the acute effects of radiation exposure.Thomas H. Maugh II
"Eugene Saenger, 90; physician conducted pivotal studies on effects of radiation exposure"
''Los Angeles Times'', October 6, 2007 (Retrieved February 18, 2010) From 1963 to 1973, a leading

endocrinologist Endocrinology (from ''endocrine'' + '' -ology'') is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events ...

, Dr. Carl Heller,

irradiated Irradiation is the process by which an object is exposed to radiation. The exposure can originate from various sources, including natural sources. Most frequently the term refers to ionizing radiation, and to a level of radiation that will serve ...

the testicles of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

prisoners. In return for their participation, he gave them $5 a month, and $100 when they had to receive a

vasectomy Vasectomy, or vasoligation, is an elective surgical procedure for male sterilization or permanent contraception. During the procedure, the male vasa deferentia are cut and tied or sealed so as to prevent sperm from entering into the urethra and ...

upon conclusion of the trial. The surgeon who sterilized the men said that it was necessary to "keep from contaminating the general population with radiation-induced

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

s". Dr. Joseph Hamilton, one of the researchers who had worked with Heller on the experiments, said that the experiments "had a little of the

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

touch". In 1963,

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

researchers irradiated the testicles of 232 prisoners to determine the effects of radiation on testicular function. When these inmates later left prison and had children, at least four of them had offspring born with

birth defects A birth defect, also known as a congenital disorder, is an abnormal condition that is present at birth regardless of its cause. Birth defects may result in disabilities that may be physical, intellectual, or developmental. The disabilities can ...

. The exact number is unknown because researchers never followed up on the status of the subjects.Goliszek, 2003: Ch. 4

Chemical experiments

Nonconsensual tests

From 1942 to 1944, the U.S.

Chemical Warfare Service The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that un ...

conducted experiments which exposed thousands of U.S. military personnel to mustard gas, in order to test the effectiveness of gas masks and protective clothing. From 1950 through 1953, the U.S. Army conducted Operation LAC (Large Area Coverage), spraying chemicals over six cities in the United States and Canada, to test dispersal patterns of chemical weapons. Army records stated that the chemicals which were sprayed on the city of

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

, Manitoba, Canada, included zinc cadmium sulfide, which was not thought to be harmful. A 1997 study by the U.S. National Research Council found that it was sprayed at levels so low as not to be harmful; it said that people were normally exposed to higher levels in urban environments. To test whether or not sulfuric acid, which is used in making molasses, was harmful as a food additive, the Louisiana State Board of Health commissioned a study to feed "Negro prisoners" nothing but molasses for five weeks. One report stated that prisoners did not "object to submitting themselves to the test, because it would not do any good if they did." A 1953 article in the medical/scientific journal ''Clinical Science'' described a medical experiment in which researchers intentionally blistered the skin on the

abdomens The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

of 41 children, who ranged in age from 8 to 14, using cantharide. The study was performed to determine how severely the substance injures/irritates the skin of children. After the studies, the children's blistered skin was removed with scissors and swabbed with peroxide.

Operation Top Hat

In June 1953, the

formally adopted guidelines regarding the use of human subjects in chemical, biological, or radiological testing and research, where authorization from the Secretary of the Army was now required for all research projects involving human subjects. Under the guidelines, seven research projects involving chemical weapons and human subjects were submitted by the

Chemical Corps The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that unti ...

for Secretary of the Army approval in August 1953. One project involved

vesicant A blister agent (or vesicant), is a chemical compound that causes severe skin, eye and mucosal pain and irritation. They are named for their ability to cause severe chemical burns, resulting in painful water blisters on the bodies of those affe ...

s, one involved phosgene, and five were experiments which involved

nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that ...

s; all seven were approved.Pechura, Constance M. and Rall, David P. ''Veterans at Risk: The Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite'',
Google Books
, U.S. Institute of Medicine: Committee to Survey the Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite, National Academies Press, 1993, p. 379–80, () Moreno, Jonathan D. ''Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans'',
Google Books
, Routledge, 2001, pp. 179–80, () The guidelines, however, left a loophole; they did not define what types of experiments and tests required such approval from the Secretary. Operation Top Hat was among the numerous projects not submitted for approval. It was termed a "local field exercise" by the Army and took place from September 15–19, 1953, at the Army Chemical School at

Fort McClellan Fort McClellan, originally Camp McClellan, is a decommissioned United States Army post located adjacent to the city of Anniston, Alabama. During World War II, it was one of the largest U.S. Army installations, training an estimated half-million tr ...

, Alabama. The experiments used Chemical Corps personnel to test decontamination methods for biological and chemical weapons, including sulfur mustard and

s. The personnel were deliberately exposed to these contaminants, were not volunteers, and were not informed of the tests. In a 1975 Pentagon Inspector General's report, the military maintained that Operation Top Hat was not subject to the guidelines requiring approval because it was a line of duty exercise in the Chemical Corps.

Holmesburg program

From approximately 1951 to 1974, the

Holmesburg Prison Holmesburg Prison, given the nickname "The Terrordome," was a prison operated by the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Prisons (PDP) from 1896 to 1995. The facility is located at 8215 Torresdale Ave in the ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

was the site of extensive

dermatological Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medical ...

research operations, using prisoners as subjects. Led by Dr. Albert M. Kligman of the

, the studies were performed on behalf of Dow Chemical Company, the U.S. Army, and Johnson & Johnson. Dow Chemical wanted to study the health effects of dioxin and other herbicides, to discover how they affect human skin, because workers at its chemical plants were developing

chloracne Chloracne is an acne-like eruption of blackheads, cysts, and pustules associated with exposure to certain halogenated aromatic compounds, such as chlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans. The lesions are most frequently found on the cheeks, behind t ...

. In the study, Kligman applied about the same amount of dioxin as that to which Dow employees were being exposed. In 1980 and 1981, some of the people who were used in this study sued Kligman because they were suffering from a variety of health problems, including lupus and psychological damage.Kaye, Jonathan. "Retin-A's Wrinkled Past", ''Pennsylvania History Review'', Spring 1997. Kligman later continued his dioxin studies, increasing the dosage of dioxin which he applied to the skin of 10 prisoners to 7,500 micrograms of dioxin, which is 468 times the dosage that the Dow Chemical official Gerald K. Rowe had authorized him to administer. As a result, the prisoners developed inflammatory

pustules A skin condition, also known as cutaneous condition, is any medical condition that affects the integumentary system—the organ system that encloses the body and includes skin, nails, and related muscle and glands. The major function of this ...

and

papules A papule is a small, well-defined bump in the skin. It may have a rounded, pointed or flat top, and may have a dip. It can appear with a stalk, be thread-like or look warty. It can be soft or firm and its surface may be rough or smooth. Some h ...

. The Holmesburg program paid hundreds of inmates a nominal stipend to test a wide range of cosmetic products and chemical compounds, whose health effects were unknown at the time.Hornblum, 1998
p. 320
/ref> Upon his arrival at Holmesberg, Kligman is claimed to have said, "All I saw before me were acres of skin ... It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time." A 1964 issue of ''Medical News'' reported that 9 out of 10 prisoners at Holmesburg Prison were medical test subjects.Andrew Goliszek, 2003: p. 226 In 1967, the

paid Kligman to apply skin-blistering chemicals to the faces and backs of inmates at Holmesburg, in Kligman's words, "to learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process."

Psychological and torture experiments

U.S. government research

The United States government funded and performed numerous psychological experiments, especially during the Cold War era. Many of these experiments were performed to help develop more effective

and interrogation techniques for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and to develop techniques for Americans to resist torture at the hands of enemy nations and organizations.

Truth serum

In studies running from 1947 to 1953, which were known as Project CHATTER, the U.S. Navy began identifying and testing truth serums, which they hoped could be used during interrogations of Soviet spies. Some of the chemicals tested on human subjects included mescaline and the

anticholinergic Anticholinergics (anticholinergic agents) are substances that block the action of the neurotransmitter called acetylcholine (ACh) at synapses in the central and peripheral nervous system. These agents inhibit the parasympathetic nervous sys ...

drug scopolamine.Goliszek, 2003: pp. 152–154 Shortly thereafter, in 1950, the CIA initiated Project Bluebird, later renamed

Project Artichoke Project ARTICHOKE (also referred to as Operation ARTICHOKE) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project that researched interrogation methods. Preceded by Project BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE officially arose on August 20, 1951 and was operated by the ...

, whose stated purpose was to develop "the means to control individuals through special interrogation techniques", "way /nowiki> to prevent the extraction of information from CIA agents", and "offensive uses of unconventional techniques, such as hypnosis and drugs". The purpose of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that stated, "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?" The project studied the use of

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

, forced

addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...

and subsequent forced withdrawal, and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects. In order to "perfect techniques ... for the abstraction of information from individuals, whether willing or not", Project BLUEBIRD researchers experimented with a wide variety of psychoactive substances, including

, heroin, marijuana,

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Ameri ...

, PCP, mescaline, and

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be ...

.Otterman, 2007
p. 23
/ref> Project BLUEBIRD researchers dosed over 7,000 U.S. military personnel with LSD, without their knowledge or consent, at the

Edgewood Arsenal Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work a ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. Years after these experiments, more than 1,000 of these soldiers suffered from several illnesses, including depression and

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrica ...

. Many of them attempted suicide.Otterman, 2007
pp. 21–22
/ref>

Drug deaths

In 1952, professional tennis player

Harold Blauer Harold Blauer (1910 – January 8, 1953) was an American tennis player who died as a result of injections of 450 mg 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (code-named EA-1298) as part of Project MKUltra, a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interro ...

died when he was injected with a fatal dose of a mescaline derivative at the

New York State Psychiatric Institute The New York State Psychiatric Institute, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was established in 1895 as one of the first institutions in the United States t ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. The

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

, which sponsored the injection, worked in collusion with the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

and the

New York State Attorney General The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government o ...

to conceal evidence of its involvement in the experiment for 23 years. Cattell claimed that he did not know what the army had ordered him to inject into Blauer, saying: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what we were giving him." On November 19, 1953, Dr.

was given a dosage of

without his knowledge or consent. After falling from a hotel window nine days later, he died under suspicious circumstances. Until the

Project MKUltra Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...

revelations, the cause of Olson's death was covered up for 22 years.Lee, M. A., Shlain, B. (1985). Acid Dreams, the Complete Social History of LSD: the CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. Grove Press.

MKUltra

In 1953, the CIA placed several of its interrogation and mind-control programs under the direction of a single program, known by the code name

MKULTRA Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...

, after CIA director Allen Dulles complained about not having enough "human guinea pigs to try these extraordinary techniques".McCoy, 2006
pp. 28–30
/ref> The MKULTRA project was under the direct command of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb of the Technical Services Division. The project received over $25 million, and involved hundreds of experiments on human subjects at eighty different institutions. In a memo describing the purpose of one MKULTRA program subprogram,

Richard Helms Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...

said: In 1954, the CIA's Project QKHILLTOP was created to study Chinese brainwashing techniques, and to develop effective methods of interrogation. Most of the early studies are believed to have been performed by the

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Medical School's human ecology study programs, under the direction of Dr. Harold Wolff.Otterman, 2007
pp. 24–25
/ref> Wolff requested that the CIA provide him any information they could find regarding "threats, coercion, imprisonment, deprivation, humiliation, torture, 'brainwashing', 'black psychiatry', and

, or any combination of these, with or without chemical agents." According to Wolff, the research team would then: Another of the MKULTRA subprojects, Operation Midnight Climax, consisted of a web of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York which were established to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations. In 1957, with funding from a CIA front organization,

Donald Ewen Cameron Donald Ewen Cameron ( – ) was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the . He served as president o ...

of the

Allan Memorial Institute The Allan Memorial Institute (AMI; french: Institut Allan Memorial), also known colloquially as "The Allan", is a former psychiatric hospital and research institute located at 1025 Pine Avenue West in Montreal, Quebec. It is situated on the sl ...

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, Canada, began MKULTRA Subproject 68.Otterman, 2007
pp. 45–47
/ref> His experiments were designed to first "depattern" individuals, erasing their minds and memories—reducing them to the mental level of an infant—and then to "rebuild" their personality in a manner of his choosing. To achieve this, Cameron placed patients under his "care" into drug-induced comas for up to 88 days, and applied numerous

high voltage High voltage electricity refers to electrical potential large enough to cause injury or damage. In certain industries, ''high voltage'' refers to voltage above a certain threshold. Equipment and conductors that carry high voltage warrant sp ...

electric shocks to them over the course of weeks or months, often administering up to 360 shocks per person. He would then perform what he called "

psychic driving Psychic driving was a psychiatric procedure of the 1950s and 1960s in which patients were subjected to a continuously repeated audio message on a looped tape to alter their behaviour. In psychic driving, patients were often exposed to hundreds of th ...

" experiments on the subjects, where he would repetitively play recorded statements, such as "You are a good wife and mother and people enjoy your company", through speakers he had implanted into blacked-out football helmets that he bound to the heads of the test subjects (for sensory deprivation purposes). The patients could do nothing but listen to these messages, played for 16–20 hours a day, for weeks at a time. In one case, Cameron forced a person to listen to a message non-stop for 101 days. Using CIA funding, Cameron converted the horse stables behind Allan Memorial into an elaborate isolation and sensory deprivation chamber where he kept patients locked in for weeks at a time. Cameron also induced insulin comas in his subjects by giving them large injections of insulin, twice a day, for up to two months at a time.

=Concerns

= The CIA leadership had serious concerns about these activities, as evidenced in a 1957 Inspector General Report, which stated: In 1963, the CIA had synthesized many of the findings from its psychological research into what became known as the

KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation The U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals are seven controversial military training manuals which were declassified by the The Pentagon, Pentagon in 1996. In 1997, two additional CIA manuals were declassified in response to a Freedom of Informa ...

handbook,McCoy, 2006
pp. 50–53
/ref> which cited the MKULTRA studies and other secret research programs as the scientific basis for their interrogation methods. Cameron regularly traveled around the U.S. teaching military personnel about his techniques ( hooding of prisoners for sensory deprivation, prolonged isolation, humiliation, etc.), and how they could be used in interrogations. Latin American paramilitary groups working for the CIA and U.S. military received training in these psychological techniques at places such as the

School of the Americas The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, renamed in the 2001 National Defen ...

. In the 21st century, many of the torture techniques developed in the MKULTRA studies and other programs were used at U.S. military and CIA prisons such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.Alfred W. McCoy, "U.S. Has a History of Using Torture"
''Z Magazine'' In the aftermath of the Congressional hearings, major news media mainly focused on sensationalistic stories related to LSD, "mind-control", and "brainwashing", and rarely used the word "torture". This suggested that the CIA researchers were, as one author put it, "a bunch of bumbling sci-fi buffoons", rather than a rational group of men who had run torture laboratories and medical experiments in major U.S. universities; they had arranged for torture, rape and psychological abuse of adults and young children, driving many of them permanently insane.

=Shutdown

= MKULTRA activities continued until 1973 when CIA director

, fearing that they would be exposed to the public, ordered the project terminated, and all of the files destroyed. But, a clerical error had sent many of the documents to the wrong office, so when CIA workers were destroying the files, some of them remained. They were later released under a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

request by

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

John Marks. Many people in the American public were outraged when they learned of the experiments, and several congressional investigations took place, including the Church Committee and the

{{R from move ...
. On April 26, 1976, the Church Committee of the United States Senate issued a report, ''Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operation with Respect to Intelligence Activities'', In Book I, Chapter XVII, p. 389, this report states:

Experiments on patients with mental illness

Dr.

Robert Heath Sir Robert Heath (20 May 1575 – 30 August 1649) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1625. Early life Heath was the son of Robert Heath, attorney, and Anne Posyer. He was educated at Tunbridge ...

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

performed experiments on 42 patients with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social wit ...

and prisoners in the

Louisiana State Penitentiary The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...

from 1950 to 1973. The experiments were funded by the U.S. Army. In the studies, he dosed them with LSD and

bulbocapnine Bulbocapnine is an alkaloid found in ''Corydalis'' (notably the European species Corydalis cava, C. cava) and ''Dicentra'', genera of the plant family Fumariaceae which have caused (notably the American species ''Corydalis caseana'') the fatal poi ...

, and implanted electrodes into the

septal area The septal area (medial olfactory area), consisting of the lateral septum and medial septum, is an area in the lower, posterior part of the medial surface of the frontal lobe, and refers to the nearby septum pellucidum. The septal nuclei are loca ...

of the brain to stimulate it and take electroencephalography (EEG) readings. Various experiments were performed on people with schizophrenia who were stable, other experiments were performed on people with their first episode of

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

. They were given

methylphenidate Methylphenidate, sold under the brand names Ritalin and Concerta among others, is the most widely prescribed central nervous system (CNS) stimulant medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and, to a lesser exten ...

to see the effect on their minds.

Torture experiments

From 1964 to 1968, the U.S. Army paid $386,486 to professors Albert Kligman and Herbert W. Copelan to perform experiments with mind-altering drugs on 320 inmates of

. The goal of the study was to determine the minimum effective dose of each drug needed to disable 50 percent of any given population. Kligman and Copelan initially claimed that they were unaware of any long-term health effects the drugs could have on prisoners; however, documents later revealed that this was not the case. Medical professionals gathered and collected data on the CIA's use of

techniques on detainees during the 21st century war on terror, to refine those techniques, and "to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies", according to a 2010 report by

Physicians for Human Rights Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New ...

. The report stated that: "Research and medical experimentation on detainees was used to measure the effects of large-volume

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

and adjust the procedure according to the results." As a result of the waterboarding experiments, doctors recommended adding saline to the water "to prevent putting detainees in a coma or killing them through over-ingestion of large amounts of plain water." Sleep deprivation tests were performed on over a dozen prisoners, in 48-, 96- and 180-hour increments. Doctors also collected data intended to help them judge the emotional and physical effects of the techniques so as to "calibrate the level of pain experienced by detainees during interrogation" and to determine if using certain types of techniques would increase a subject's "susceptibility to severe pain". In 2010, the CIA denied the allegations, claiming they never performed any experiments, and saying "The report is just wrong"; however, the U.S. government never investigated the claims. Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen ran a company that was paid $81 million by the CIA, that, according to the

Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...

, developed the " enhanced interrogation techniques" used. In November 2014, the American Psychological Association announced that they would hire a lawyer to investigate claims that they were complicit in the development of enhanced interrogation techniques that constituted torture. In August 2010, the U.S. weapons manufacturer

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...

announced that it had partnered with a jail in

Castaic, California Castaic () (Chumash: ''Kaštiq''; Spanish: ''Castéc'') is an unincorporated community in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 19,015. For statistical purposes the Census Bureau h ...

, to use prisoners as test subjects for its

Active Denial System The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal directed-energy weapon developed by the U.S. military, designed for area denial, perimeter security and crowd control. Informally, the weapon is also called the heat ray since it works by heating t ...

that "fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain." The device, dubbed "pain ray" by its critics, was rejected for fielding in Iraq due to Pentagon fears that it would be used as an instrument of torture.

Academic research

In 1939, at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport, Iowa, 22 children were the subjects of the so-called "monster" experiment. This experiment attempted to use psychological abuse to induce stuttering in children who spoke normally. The experiment was designed by Dr.

Wendell Johnson Wendell Johnson (April 16, 1906 – August 29, 1965) was an American psychologist, author and was a proponent of general semantics (or GS). He was born in Roxbury, Kansas and died in Iowa City, Iowa where most of his life's work was based. The W ...

, one of the nation's most prominent speech pathologists, for the purpose of testing one of his theories on the cause of stuttering."Theory improved treatment and understanding of stuttering:" Ethics concerns led researchers to conceal the experiment Decades later, the experiment's victims struggle to make sense of their past
, Jim Dyer, ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'', Monday, June 11, 2001 (Retrieved February 17, 2010) In 1961, in response to the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

, the

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

psychologist Stanley Milgram performed his "Obedience to Authority Study", also known as the

Milgram Experiment The Milgram experiment(s) on obedience to authority figures were a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, 40 men in the age range ...

, to determine if it was possible that the Nazi genocide could have resulted from millions of people who were "just following orders". The Milgram Experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants, who were told, as part of the experiment, to apply electric shocks to test subjects (who were actors and did not really receive

electric shocks Electrical injury is a physiological reaction caused by electric current passing through the body. The injury depends on the density of the current, tissue resistance and duration of contact. Very small currents may be imperceptible or produce ...

). In 1971, Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison experiment in which twenty-four male students were randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adapted to their roles beyond Zimbardo's expectations with prison guards exhibiting authoritarian status and psychologically abusing the prisoners who were passive in their acceptance of the abuse. The experiment was largely controversial with criticisms aimed toward the lack of scientific principles and a control group, and for ethical concerns regarding Zimbardo's lack of intervention in the prisoner abuse.

Pharmacological research

At Harvard University, in the late 1940s, researchers began performing experiments in which they tested

diethylstilbestrol Diethylstilbestrol (DES), also known as stilbestrol or stilboestrol, is a nonsteroidal estrogen medication, which is presently rarely used. In the past, it was widely used for a variety of indications, including pregnancy support for those with a ...

, a synthetic

estrogen Estrogen or oestrogen is a category of sex hormone responsible for the development and regulation of the female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. There are three major endogenous estrogens that have estrogenic hormonal ac ...

, on pregnant women at the Lying-In Hospital of the University of Chicago. The women experienced an abnormally high number of miscarriages and babies with

low birth weight Low birth weight (LBW) is defined by the World Health Organization as a birth weight of an infant of or less, regardless of gestational age. Infants born with LBW have added health risks which require close management, often in a neonatal inten ...

(LBW). None of the women were told that they were being experimented on.Loue, 2000
p. 30
/ref> In 1962, researchers at the Laurel Children's Center in Maryland tested experimental

acne Acne, also known as ''acne vulgaris'', is a long-term skin condition that occurs when dead skin cells and oil from the skin clog hair follicles. Typical features of the condition include blackheads or whiteheads, pimples, oily skin, and ...

medications on children. They continued their tests even after half of the children developed severe

liver The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it ...

damage from the medications.Goliszek, 2003: pp. 223–225 In 2004,

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

research participant Dan Markingson died by suicide while enrolled in an industry-sponsored pharmaceutical trial comparing three FDA-approved atypical antipsychotics: Seroquel (quetiapine), Zyprexa (olanzapine), and Risperdal (risperidone). Writing on the circumstances surrounding Markingson's death in the study, which was designed and funded by Seroquel manufacturer

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

, University of Minnesota Professor of Bioethics Carl Elliott noted that Markingson was enrolled in the study against the wishes of his mother, Mary Weiss, and that he was forced to choose between enrolling in the study or being involuntarily committed to a state mental institution. Further investigation revealed financial ties to AstraZeneca by Markingson's psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen C. Olson, oversights and biases in AstraZeneca's trial design, and the inadequacy of university Institutional Review Board (IRB) protections for research subjects. A 2005 FDA investigation cleared the university. Nonetheless, controversy around the case has continued. A ''Mother Jones'' article resulted in a group of university faculty members sending a public letter to the university Board of Regents urging an external investigation into Markingson's death.

Other experiments

The 1846 journals of Walter F. Jones of Petersburg, Virginia, describe how he poured boiling water onto the backs of naked slaves afflicted with

typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several d ...

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

, at four-hour intervals, because he thought that this might "cure" the disease by "stimulating the capillaries".Washington, 2008
pp. 60–63
/ref> In 1942, the

biochemist Edwin Joseph Cohn injected 64

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

prisoners with cow blood, as part of an experiment sponsored by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

.Dober, Gregor
"Cheaper than Chimpanzees: Expanding the Use of Prisoners in Medical Experiments"
''Prison Legal News'', Vol. 19 No. 3, March 2008 In 1950, researchers at the Cleveland City Hospital ran experiments to study changes in cerebral blood flow: they injected people with spinal anesthesia, and inserted needles into their jugular veins and brachial arteries to extract large quantities of blood and, after massive blood loss which caused paralysis and

fainting Syncope, commonly known as fainting, or passing out, is a loss of consciousness and muscle strength characterized by a fast onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery. It is caused by a decrease in blood flow to the brain, typically from ...

, measured their blood pressure. The experiment was often performed multiple times on the same subject. In a series of studies which were published in the medical journal ''Pediatrics'', researchers from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

Department of Pediatrics performed experiments on 113 newborns ranging in age from one hour to three days, in which they studied changes in blood pressure and blood flow. In one of the studies, researchers inserted a

catheter In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tubing (material), tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgi ...

through the babies'

umbilical arteries The umbilical artery is a paired artery (with one for each half of the body) that is found in the abdominal and pelvic regions. In the fetus, it extends into the umbilical cord. Structure Development The umbilical arteries supply deoxygenated ...

and into their aortas, and then submerged their feet in ice water. In another of the studies, they strapped 50 newborn babies to a

circumcision Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Top ...

board, and turned them upside down so that all of their blood rushed into their heads. The San Antonio Contraceptive Study was a clinical research study published in 1971 about the side effects of oral contraceptives. Women coming to a clinic in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

, Texas, to prevent pregnancies were not told they were participating in a research study or receiving

placebo A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like saline), sham surgery, and other procedures. In general, placebos can af ...

s. Ten of the women became pregnant while on placebos. During the decade of 2000–2010, artificial blood was transfused into research subjects across the United States without their consent by Northfield Labs. Later studies showed the artificial blood caused a significant increase in the risk of heart attacks and death. In the 2010s, Facebook breached ethical guidelines by conducting a research experiment to manipulate 700,000 users' emotions without their consent. According to the 2008 report by the U.S.

Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a ...

, "Developments in

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

, including genetic engineering, may produce a wide variety of live agents and toxins that are difficult to detect and counter; and new chemical warfare agents and mixtures of chemical weapons and biowarfare agents are being developed . . . Countries are using the natural overlap between weapons and civilian applications of chemical and biological materials to conceal chemical weapon and bioweapon production."

Legal, academic and professional policy

During the Nuremberg Medical Trials, several of the Nazi doctors and scientists who were being tried for their human experiments cited past unethical studies performed in the United States in their defense, namely the Chicago malaria experiments conducted by

Joseph Goldberger Joseph Goldberger ( sk, Jozef Goldberger, hu, Goldberger József) (July 16, 1874 – January 17, 1929) was an American physician and epidemiologist in the United States Public Health Service (PHS). As a public health official, he was an advocate ...

. Subsequent investigation led to a report by Andrew Conway Ivy, who testified that the research was "an example of human experiments which were ideal because of their conformity with the highest ethical standards of human experimentation". The trials contributed to the formation of the

Nuremberg Code The Nuremberg Code (german: Nürnberger Kodex) is a set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in '' U.S. v Brandt'', one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War. Tho ...

in an effort to prevent such abuses. A secret AEC document dated April 17, 1947, titled ''Medical Experiments in Humans'' stated: "It is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans that might have an adverse reaction on

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

or result in legal suits. Documents covering such fieldwork should be classified Secret." At the same time, the

was instructed to tell citizens downwind from bomb tests that the increases in cancers were due to

neurosis Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...

, and that women with radiation sickness, hair loss, and burned skin were suffering from "housewife syndrome". In 1964, the

World Medical Association The World Medical Association (WMA) is an international and independent confederation of free professional medical associations representing physicians worldwide. WMA was formally established on September 18, 1947 and has grown to 115 national ...

passed the

Declaration of Helsinki The Declaration of Helsinki (DoH, fi, Helsingin julistus, sv, Helsingforsdeklarationen) is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association (WMA) ...

, a set of ethical principles for the medical community regarding human experimentation. In 1966, the United States

(NIH) Office for Protection of Research Subjects (OPRR) was created. It issued its ''Policies for the Protection of Human Subjects,'' which recommended establishing independent review bodies to oversee experiments. These were later called institutional review boards. In 1969,

Kentucky Court of Appeals The Kentucky Court of Appeals is the lower of Kentucky's two appellate courts, under the Kentucky Supreme Court. Prior to a 1975 amendment to the Kentucky Constitution the Kentucky Court of Appeals was the only appellate court in Kentucky. Th ...

Judge Samuel Steinfeld dissented in ''Strunk v. Strunk, 445 S.W.2d 145.'' He made the first judicial suggestion that the

should be applied to American

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

. In 1974, the

National Research Act The National Research Act was enacted by the 93rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on July 12, 1974, after a series of congressional hearings on human-subjects research, directed by Senator Edward Kennedy. The ...

established the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects. It mandated that the

come up with regulations to protect the rights of human research subjects. Project

was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...

, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the

{{R from move ...
.Science, Technology, and the CIA
''National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book'', Jeffrey T. Richelson, editor, September 10, 2001 (Retrieved February 18, 2010) In 1975, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW) created regulations which included the recommendations laid out in the NIH's 1966 ''Policies for the Protection of Human Subjects''.

Title 45 of the Code of Federal Regulations CFR Title 45 - Public Welfare is one of fifty titles comprising the United States Code of Federal Regulations In the law of the United States, the ''Code of Federal Regulations'' (''CFR'') is the codification of the general and permanent reg ...

, known as "The Common Rule", requires the appointment and use of institutional review boards (IRBs) in experiments using human subjects. On April 18, 1979, prompted by an investigative journalist's public disclosure of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the

United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is " ...

(later renamed to

Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

) released a report entitled ''Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research'', written by Dan Harms. It laid out many modern guidelines for ethical medical research. In 1987 the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled in ''

United States v. Stanley ''United States v. Stanley'', 483 U.S. 669 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a serviceman could not file a tort action against the federal government even though the government secretly administered doses ...

,'' 483 U.S. 669, that a U.S. serviceman who was given

without his consent, as part of military experiments, could not sue the U.S. Army for damages. Stanley was later awarded over $400,000 in 1996, two years after Congress passed a private claims bill in reaction to the case. Dissenting the original verdict in ''U.S. v. Stanley'', Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated:

No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of Nazi scientists who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War, and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated that the 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential ... to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators.

On January 15, 1994, President Bill Clinton formed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE). This committee was created to investigate and report the use of human beings as test subjects in experiments involving the effects of ionizing radiation in federally funded research. The committee attempted to determine the causes of the experiments and reasons that the proper oversight did not exist. It made several recommendations to help prevent future occurrences of similar events. As of 2007, not a single U.S. government researcher had been prosecuted for human experimentation. The preponderance of the victims of U.S. government experiments have not received compensation or, in many cases, acknowledgment of what was done to them. Some authors have proposed a structured ethical framework based on an Ethics of Political Commemoration for offering institutional gestures of redress for transgressions, based on an approach similar to the

just war theory The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is ...

References

Citations

General and cited references

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Further resources

General

"Human Research Report"
- a monthly newsletter on protecting human subjects * * * * *

Biological warfare and disease/pathogen experiments

The History of Bioterrorism in America
Richard Sanders, ''Race and History'', Sunday, November 24, 2002 (Retrieved February 18, 2010)

– Federation of American Scientists *Franz, et al.
The U.S. Biological Warfare and Biological Defense Programs
*''US Army Activities in the US Biological Warfare Program'', 1977 Congressional report *Christopher et al., "Biological warfare. A historical perspective", ''Journal of the American Medical Association''. 6 August 1997;278(5):412-7. *"Years Ago, The Military Sprayed Germs on U.S. Cities", ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', October 22, 2001, via American Patriot Friends Network. Retrieved November 13, 2008.

Human radiation experiments

Books

*'' Killing Our Own: The disaster of America's experience with atomic radiation'', by Harvey Wasserman, Delacorte Press, c1992, *'' The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments'', by

, The Dial Press, 1999, *''The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests'', by Martha Stephens, Duke University Press, c2002, Durham, N.C., *''Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World'', by Holly M. Barker, Wadsworth, 2004.

Government documents

Adherence To and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments
- U. S.

Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE)
– National Security Archives
Exposure of the American population to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests: a review of the CDC-NCI draft report on a feasibility study of the health consequences to the American population from nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States and other nations
''National Research Council (U.S.). Committee to Review the CDC-NCI Feasibility Study of the Health Consequences from Nuclear Weapons Tests'', National Academies Press, 2003

Journals

*"'A Little Touch of Buchenwald': America's Secret Radiation Experiments", ''Reviews in American History'' – Volume 28, Number 4, December 2000, pp. 601–606
Chair's Perspective on the Work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
by Ruth Faden

Psychological/torture/interrogation experiments

Bibliography of U.S. interrogation/torture research
*''Truth, torture, and the American way'',

Jennifer Harbury Jennifer K. Harbury (born 1951) is an American lawyer, author, and human rights activist. She has been instrumental in forcing the revelation of the complicity of the United States CIA in human rights abuses, particularly in Guatemala and other cou ...

*Biderman, A. ''Social-Psychological Needs and "Involuntary" Behavior as Illustrated by Compliance in Interrogation'', Sociometry, Vol. 23, No. 2 (June 1960), pp. 120–147
The CIA: Mind-Bending Disclosures
– ''Time Magazine'', Monday, August 15, 1977 (Retrieved February 18, 2010)

* Khatchadourian, Raffi (December 7, 2012) "Operation Delirium", ''The New Yorker''

Video

MKULTRA Victim Testimony A
– 1977 MKULTRA Congressional Hearings
MKULTRA Victim Testimony B
– 1977 MKULTRA Congressional Hearings
MKULTRA Victim Testimony C
– 1977 MKULTRA Congressional Hearings
President Clinton apologizes for Human Radiation Experiments
* [http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/8/experiments_in_torture_medical_group_accuses Physicians for Human Rights Accuses CIA of Carrying Out Illegal Human Experimentation] – video report by ''Democracy Now!''
The Dark History of Medical Experimentation from the Nazis to Tuskegee to Puerto Rico
– video report by ''Democracy Now!'' {{U.S. biological defense Human subject research in the United States, American medical research Clinical research ethics Human rights abuses in the United States Suffering History of medicine in the United States