1947–1953: Project CHATTER

Edward Cohn, MD, a Harvard biochemist injected 64 Massachusetts prisoners with beef blood in an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Navy. The antigenic irritants in bovine serum albumin could not be purified away biochemically, dooming the medical utility of the bovine protein for the casualties of war. The rejection of…

1966: NIH Office for Protection of Research Subjects (OPRR) created Policies for the Protection of Human Subjects calling for the establishment of independent review bodies later known as Institutional Review Boards.

John Neefe and Joseph Stokes, Jr. conducted a hepatitis experiment in which prisoners in New Jersey State Prison were fed hepatic liver and hepatic feces. “The authors describe the blending of hepatic liver and hepatic feces in a Warring Blender to create “liver suspension in sterile beef heart infusion broth”…

Syphilis experiments in Guatemala were funded by the US Public Health Service (PHS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (later renamed Pan Am Health Org.) The US team of researchers in Guatemala was led by John Charles Cutler, MD of the PHS who…

1958–1962: An Atomic Energy Commission field study — “Project Chariot” — spread radioactive materials over Inupiat land in Point Hope, Alaska. Today, cancer is the leading cause of death in Point Hope. Alaska Dispatch, 2012.