Alliance for Human Research Protection
AHRP Honors Exemplary Professionals
Fred Baughman, MD
Fred A. Baughman, Jr.
Carl Elliott, MD
Carl Elliott, MD
Curt D. Furberg, MD
Curt D. Furberg, MD
David Graham, MD
David Graham, MD
Diane Harper, MD
Diane Harper, MD
Bernadine Healy, MD
Bernadine Healy, MD
Anthony Morris, MD
Anthony Morris, MD
Loren Mosher, MD
Loren Mosher, MD
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Nancy Olivieri, MD
Nancy Olivieri, MD
Maurice Pappworth, MD
Maurice Pappworth
John Pesando, MD
John Pesando, MD
Jacob Puliyel, MD
Jacob Puliyel, MD
John Thompson, MD
John Thompson, MD
Dr. Andrew Wakefield
Dr. Andrew Wakefield

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    • Eugenics / Bioethics
    • Medicalized Racism
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      • Children
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    • Nuremberg Code
    • Informed Consent
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  • Medical Atrocities
    • Before Nuremberg
    • Nazi Medical Atrocities
    • Japanese Medical Atrocities
    • U.S. Cold War Experiments
      • Operation Paperclip
      • US Soldiers-GuineaPigs
      • Radiation Experiments
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    • WWII Updates
  • Current Controversies
    • Unethical Experiments
    • Concealed Data
    • Informed Consent Waivers
    • Vaccine mandates

Before Nuremberg

  • 6th Century BC: Biblical Daniel’s Scientific Experiment

    May 7, 2015 |

    Probably few Bible scholars or scientists are aware that Daniel—the same Daniel who was cast into the lion’s den—was also a scientist. Daniel proposed (what is now recognized as) a classic experimental design: comparing the effect of a vegetable and water diet . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 5th Century B.C: Hippocratic Oath

    May 7, 2015 |

    The Hippocratic medical ethics oath is attributed to Hippocrates, and was adopted as a guide to the  medical profession conduct throughout the ages and still used in the graduation ceremonies of many medical schools. In essence, the Hippocratic Oath: “Primum non nocere” . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 30 BC: Cleopatra: Gender Experiment

    May 7, 2015 |

    In the first century B.C. Cleopatra devised an experiment to test the accuracy of the theory that it takes 40 days to fashion a male fetus fully and 80 days to fashion a female fetus. When her handmaids were sentenced to death . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 12th Century: Oath of Maimonides, Rabbi & Physician

    May 7, 2015 |

    “The eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all time; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor thirst for glory or for a great reputation engage . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1714: Charles Maitland, Smallpox

    May 7, 2015 |

    Dr. Maitland inoculated six prisoners with smallpox, promising them release from prison. (Read D. Wooton, Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates, 2006.)

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1796: Edward Jenner, smallpox

    May 7, 2015 |

    Jenner used children to test a theory — based on folklore, not scientific evidence — that cowpox, a disease common in the rural parts of western England in the late eighteenth century, conferred immunity against subsequent exposure to smallpox. He tested his . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1845–1849: J. Marion Sims, “the father of gynegology”

    May 7, 2015 |

    J. Marion Sims performed multiple experimental surgeries on enslaved African women without the benefit of anesthesia. After suffering unimaginable pain, many lost their lives to infection. One woman was made to endure 34 experimental operations for a prolapsed uterus. Read: Wendy Brinker, 2002.

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1880: Dr. Arnauer Hensen

    May 7, 2015 |

    Dr. Armauer Hensen, a Norweigian microbiologist who discovered the bacterium that causes leprosy, having failed to grow the bacterium in a petri dish or any experimental animal, he tried to inoculate leprosy into the eye of a woman without her consent or . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1885: Louis Pasteur

    May 7, 2015 |

    Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, microbiologist who laid the foundation for vaccines. After testing the rabies vaccine in 50 dogs, he tested the vaccine on 9-year-old Joseph Meister who was bitten by a rabid dog with a physician in attendance. The experiment . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1896: Arthur Wentworth MD

    May 7, 2015 |

    Arthur Wentworth, MD, a pediatrician trained at Harvard Medical School, performed spinal taps on 29 babies and young children at Children’s Hospital, Boston, to determine if the procedure was harmful. Dr. John Roberts of Philadelphia, noting the non-therapeutic indication, labeled Wentworth’s procedures . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1897: Giuseppe Sanarelli, MD

    May 7, 2015 |

    Giuseppe Sanarelli, MD, Italian bacteriologist injects the bacillus causing yellow fever five patients without their consent. Three of the five patients died. Dr. William Osler publicly admonished Sanarelli, stating: “To deliberately inject a poison of known high degree of virulency into a . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1900: Walter Reed, MD, Yellow Fever

    May 7, 2015 |

    Yellow fever epidemics struck the United States repeatedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The disease was not indigenous; epidemics were imported by ship from the Caribbean. Dr. Reed decided against self-experimentation and injected 22 Spanish immigrant workers in Cuba instead with . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1900–1930: Berlin Code of Ethics

    May 7, 2015 |

    Biomedical research in Germany was considered the most advanced in the world — both in its development and its ethics standards. Berlin Code of Ethics (1900) guaranteed that “all medical interventions for other than diagnostic, healing, and immunization purposes, regardless of other . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1904: Carnegie Institution — Experimental Evolution –> Eugenics

    May 7, 2015 |

    The Carnegie Institution established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, under the directorship of Charles Davenport, which became the foundation for the eugenics movement. Eugenics uses pseudo-scientific techniques and hypotheses to support racism. “Historians of race and American medicine . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1906: Richard Strong, MD, cholera

    May 7, 2015 |

    Richard Strong, MD, a professor of tropical medicine at Harvard, conducted cholera experiments on 24 prisoners in the Philippines killing thirteen. Their deaths were attributed to the accidental substitution of bubonic plague serum for cholera. He rewarded the survivors with cigars. During . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1909: Luther Emmett Holt, tuberculosis

    May 7, 2015 |

    Luther Emmett Holt, a professor of children’s disease at Columbia University, was accused of conducting 1,000 tuberculin tests on sick and dying babies at NY Babies’ Hospital. (Grodin and Glantz, Children As Research Subjects)

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1911: Hideyo Noguchi, MD, syphilis

    May 7, 2015 |

    Hideyo Noguchi, MD, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research injected a syphilis preparation into 146 children — 100 were institutionalized and 46 were healthy — in an attempt to develop a skin test for syphilis. Several parents sued Dr. Noguchi for . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1913: St. Vincent’s House

    May 7, 2015 |

    In Pennsylvania, 146 children were inoculated with syphilis in several hospitals (Sierra, 2011); and in Philadelphia’s St. Vincent’s House researchers “tested” 15 infants at with tuberculin resulting in several children becoming permanently blind. This atrocity was recorded by the Pennsylvania House of . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1913–1951: Dr. Leo Stanley

    May 7, 2015 |

    Dr. Leo Stanley, chief surgeon at San Quentin Prison for forty years, performed a wide variety of unethical experiments — which were eugenics in nature — on hundreds of prisoners. He focused on rejuvenating their masculinity through two bizarre methods: sterilization, and . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1914: Justice Benjamin Cardozo, informed consent ruling

    May 7, 2015 |

    In a lawsuit involving the Society of NY Hospital, Justice Benjamin Cardozo ruled : “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body, and a surgeon who performs an operation . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1916: American Medical Association, no research ethics code

    May 7, 2015 |

    “Leaders of the American Medical Association briefly considered amending the organization’s code of ethics to include the provision that human experimentation calling for the knowledgeable permission of the subject. The AMA leadership decided not to adopt such a stance believing it both . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1915: Joseph Goldberger, MD, pellegra

    May 7, 2015 |

    Joseph Goldberger, MD, under orders of the US Public Health Office induces Pellagra, a debilitating fatal disease affecting the central nervous system, in twelve Mississippi inmates in an attempt to discover treatments for the disease. He determined that the disease was caused . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • American Eugenics Research — Racism masquerading as “science”

    May 7, 2015 |

    “Whatever the motives and methods used to realise them – persuasion, education, coercion, sterilisation, segregation, euthanasia and more – eugenics has stemmed from the belief that a population, ‘race’, or even the species, is ‘degenerating’ and in urgent need of improvement and . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg | Tagged eugenics, Steven Mosher, scientific racism, Origins of Population Control, War Against the Weak
  • 1921: Alfred Hess & Mildred Fish, orphan guinea pigs

    May 7, 2015 |

    Alfred Hess & Mildred Fish used orphans as guinea pigs in studies testing dietary factors in rickets and scurvy by withholding essential nutrients from institutionalized infants until they developed the disease. Orange juice was withheld until the infants developed hemorrhages associated with . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1924: U.S. Immigration Restriction Act

    May 7, 2015 |

    Under the undue influence of Harvard and other Ivy League eugenicists, the U.S. enacted the Immigration Restriction Act, 1924 to prevent “social inadequates” from immigrating. The established quotas according to racial and/or ethnic ancestry; and was the main tool used to prevent . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1927: U.S. Supreme Court upheld sterilization statute

    May 7, 2015 |

    U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Virginia forced sterilization statute of people considered “genetically unfit.” Harvard-educated eugenicist, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ infamous declaration, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough. . .” resulted in the forced sterilization not only of Carrie Buck of Charlottesville, Virginia, . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • International Federation of Eugenics — Harvard & the Holocaust

    May 7, 2015 |

    Harvard and the Holocaust (2013) an article by AE Samaan, author of the book, From a Race of Masters to a Master Race,: 1948 — 1848, argues that “scientific racism” which exploded into systematic apocalyptic genocide under the Nazi regime—culminating in the Holocaust —is the end . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg | Tagged Harvard and the Holocaus Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogent, Harry Davenport
  • 1930: Lubeck, Germany: Vaccine deaths

    May 7, 2015 |

    Lubeck, Germany: 240 infants were vaccinated with the Calmette tuberculosis vaccine during the first 10 days of life: almost all developed tuberculosis and 72 infants died from contaminated live BCG tuberculosis vaccine. Two people who had prepared the vaccine in the local . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1930s: Antivivisectionists campaign against wide use of children as guinea pigs

    May 7, 2015 |

    William C. Black, MD, selected at random, 23 children from his patients and injected them with infected herpes tissues to demonstrate symptoms that were caused by a single herpes virus. (Timothy Murphy, The Ethics of Research with Children, AMA, 2003) M Hines . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1931: Cornelius Rhoades, MD

    May 7, 2015 |

    Cornelius Rhoads, MD, a prominent, Harvard trained pathologist conducted a cancer experiment in Puerto Rico under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations resulting in the death of thirteen subjects. He was accused of purposely infecting his Puerto Rican subjects . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1931: Germany: “Guidelines for Human Experimentation”

    May 7, 2015 |

    Germany’s Ministry of the Interior issued “Guidelines for Human Experimentation” Unambiguous informed consent is mandatory; particular care must be taken when the subject is a child under 18; exploitation of patients who poor, or socially disadvantaged is prohibited; disclosure requirements — the . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1932: U.S. Public Health, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

    May 7, 2015 |

    U.S. Public Health Service begins a 25-year Syphilis experiment at Tuskegee, Alabama, involving 400 black sharecroppers. The purpose of the experiment was to study the natural course of untreated syphilis in Negro men. Notwithstanding the participation of black institutions, doctors and the . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1938: American Medical Association rejects black physicians

    May 7, 2015 |

    American Medical Association rejects request from 5,000 black physicians to join the AMA. The rejection was widely reported in German medical jounals. (Lifton, Nazi Medicine: the anti-Hippocratic Legacy) Not until July 2008, did the American Medical Association issue a formal apology for . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • 1930s — 1940s: William C Black, MD conducted herpes experiments on children

    May 7, 2015 |

    William C Black MD conducted unethical medical experiments on children. He wrote a report about an experiment in which he had infected a 12-month old baby with herpes. Francis Payton Rous, editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, rejected Black’s manuscript and wrote . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg
  • Reference Sources for Experiments Prior to World War II

    May 7, 2015 |

    Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) Report Ch. 2, 1995. Lawrence Altman. Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine, 1988 Appeal from the Lübeck Decision, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 1932 Nicholas Bakalar.  Where the Germs Are: . . . Continue reading →

    Categorized Before Nuremberg

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Random Quote

Like a river that seems frozen solid, but flows freely below its thin crust of surface ice, the old eugenics has gone underground but continues to kill those caught in its current.

— Peter Aleff
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