Humans Used as Guinea Pigs By Government, Military, Business

History of Experimentation on Human Guinea Pigs

1932 to 1972 - In the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment. They are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated. The study continues for four decades. (MSNBC, Time Magazine, Wikipedia)

1939 - At an orphanage in Iowa, 22 children are the subjects of the so-called "monster" experiment, which attempts to use psychological abuse to induce children who spoke normally to stutter. The experiment is designed by Dr. Wendell Johnson, one of the nation's most prominent speech pathologists, for the purpose of testing one of his theories on the cause of stuttering. (CBS News, San Jose Mercury News, Wikipedia)

1940 - In Chicago, 400 prisoners are infected with malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust. (Life Magazine, Life 2nd photo, Wikipedia, medlibrary.org)

1940 to 1979 - The U.K. Ministry of Defence conducts open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told. (BBC News, Guardian)

1943 - In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD. (NPR, Wikipedia)

1944 - The U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and protective clothing. Individuals are locked in a gas chamber and exposed to poisonous mustard gas and lewisite. By the time the war is over, more than 60,0000 U.S. servicemen have been used as human subjects in chemical defense research programs. They are told that they should never reveal the nature of the experiments. (Telegraph, Institute of Medicine)

1945 - Project Paperclip is initiated. In this top secret program, the U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on secret government projects in the United States. (BBC News, New York Times, MSNBC/AP)

1945 - "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was a critical chemical component in atomic bomb production. The use of fluoride in drinking water, it is found, causes adverse effects to the central nervous system. But much of the information is squelched in the name of "national security" because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs. (Project Censored, BBC producer, Fluoride Action Network)

1946 to 1953 - In an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Quaker Oats corporation at the Walter E. Fernald State School in Massachusetts, 73 mentally disabled children are fed oatmeal containing radioactive calcium and other radioisotopes, in order to track "how nutrients were digested." The children are not told that they are being fed radioactive chemicals and are instead told by hospital staff and researchers that they are joining a "science club." (CBS News)

1950 - In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Francisco. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms. At least one man dies. (San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal - full text)

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