Book ID: CBB001213180

Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America (2013)

unapi

Hornblum, Allen M. (Author)
Newman, Judith L. (Author)
Dober, Gregory J. (Author)


Palgrave Macmillan


Publication Date: 2013
Physical Details: x + 266 pp.; ill.
Language: English

"The sad history of young children, especially institutionalized children, being used as cheap and available test subjects - the raw material for experimentation - started long before the atomic age and went well beyond exposure to radioactive isotopes. Experimental vaccines for hepatitis, measles, polio and other diseases, exploratory therapeutic procedures such as electroshock and lobotomy, and untested pharmaceuticals such as curare and thorazine were all tested on young children in hospitals, orphanages, and mental asylums as if they were some widely accepted intermediary step between chimpanzees and humans. Occasionally, children supplanted the chimps. Bereft of legal status or protectors, institutionalized children were often the test subjects of choice for medical researchers hoping to discover a new vaccine, prove a new theory, or publish an article in a respected medical journal. Many took advantage of the opportunity. One would be hard-pressed to identify a researcher whose professional career was cut short because he incorporated week-old infants, ward-bound juvenile epileptics, or the profoundly retarded in his experiments. In short, involuntary, non-therapeutic, and dangerous experiments on children were far from an unusual or dishonorable endeavor during the last century"--

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Reviewed By

Review Brookfield, Tarah (2015) Review of "Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America". Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine (pp. 215-217). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001213180/

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Authors & Contributors
Altenbaugh, Richard J.
Dashefsky, Hannah
Amanda Smithers
Forbes, Amy Wiese
Berman, Henry
Phillips, Christopher J.
Concepts
Human experimentation
Medicine
Cold War
Children
Experiments and experimentation
Experimental medicine
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
20th century, early
21st century
19th century
18th century
Places
United States
England
Mississippi (U.S.)
South Africa
Soviet Union
Great Britain
Institutions
Universiteit Leiden
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