1947–1953: Project CHATTER

Scientific evidence existed showing the vaccine was contaminated with a cancer causing monkey virus — simian virus 40 (SV40) — but public health officials refused to take precautionary action. An estimated 98 million Americans received the Salk Polio vaccine. “Few back then grasped that these vaccines might also be a…

Sixty-four California prisoners were paralyzed with succinylcholine, a neuromuscular agent that restricts breathing. Succinylcholine has since been used in lethal injection protocols. When five prisoners in the California experiment refused to participate as subjects in the experiment, researchers were given “permission” to inject the recalcitrant prisoners against their will. (Harriet…

1960–1972: University of Cincinnati Medical School conducted whole body radiation experiments on 90 seriously ill cancer patients at its charity hospital — 60% were poor African Americans. Read more Radiation experiments

US Army and State Department funded a crash program to develop new drugs against malaria. The largest single CMR malaria experiment involved 800 prisoners at federal penitentiary in Atlanta, New Jersey State Reformatory and Illinois State Penitentiary. A series of experiments were conducted at Stateville Penitentiary by medical researchers from…

1976: National Urban League held a conference on Human Experimentation, announcing: “We don’t want to kill science but we don’t want science to kill, mangle and abuse us.”

1932–1972: Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, “the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in the history of medicine,” continued unabated 25 years after Nuremberg. Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, “the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in the history of medicine” sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service continued unabated until 1972 — 25…