1954: Polio Vaccine

1963–1973: “Reproductive radiation experiments” were conducted on 64 prison inmates by Dr. C. Alvin Paulsen (University of Washington) under a private contract with the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Energy Department). Read more * Radiation experiments.

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

Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) conducted by Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D, a psychologist simulated a prison constructed in a basement at Stanford University. The 24 male subjects were screened normal Stanford undergraduates who were paid $15 a day for an experiment that was to last two weeks. They were randomly assigned to…

Jessica Mitford’s article “Experiments Behind Bars,” in the Atlantic Monthly, 1973, followed by her book Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business, 1973, exposed massive exploitation of U.S. prisoners who served as incarcerated “lab rats” in pharmaceutical drug research and government mind control experiments. Until Mitford’s powerful indictment, from 1962–1975,…

Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted the first of a series of “Obedience to Authority” experiments shortly after the trial of Adolph Eichman, the Nazi criminal tried in Jerusalem for crimes against humanity. Eichman’s defense was, not guilty, claiming that he had merely followed orders. Milgram sought to learn the…

Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Thomas Francis tested their influenza vaccine in institutionalized mental patients and prisoners in Michigan; Dr. Albert Sabin tested his live virus polio vaccine in 133 prisoners at the Federal Reformatory in Ohio; Sloan-Kettering collaborated with Ohio State University, and conducted cancer experiments in which live…