5 Of The Least Ethical Medical Experiments In Modern History

5

The U.S. Government Irradiated Dozens Of Children Just To See What Would Happen

In the '90s, Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Eileen Welsome uncovered what she called "The Plutonium Files" -- documentation of a vast conspiracy wherein America spent most of the '40s and '50 doing involuntary radiation experiments on unwitting citizens. The first was performed by members of the Manhattan Project, who injected 18 people with plutonium-238, the deadliest radioactive substance on Earth. These men, women, and children (many working-class and/or black) were supposedly terminally ill anyway, and thus expendable in the eyes of the most murderous scientists in history. But plenty lived long enough to develop horrific cancerous tumors which necessitated amputation, all without realizing they'd been turned into glow-in-the-dark guinea pigs.

Weirder but just as cruel, between 1945 and 1953, MIT conducted a series of government-sanctioned and wildly unethical experiments on children, feeding them irradiated bowls of cereal to track how their young bodies absorbed the nutrients. Their victims were from Walter E. Fernald State School in Massachusetts, an institute for mentally troubled and disabled boys, and the 74 participants in this "Science Club" didn't know they were the lab rats.

These downtrodden children (many didn't have, or weren't allowed to see, parents) were bribed with trips to baseball games, parties, and Mickey Mouse watches in exchange for their livelihoods. Perhaps most disturbing was that this was all sponsored by the good people at Quaker Oats, who even supplied the tainted cereal in the hopes they could use the results in a demented ad campaign.

QuakerSo on the extremely off chance you didn't find Quaker Oats disgusting already, there's another reason to.

But don't worry, there was some accountability here. Bill Clinton launched an investigation into the cover-up. He then released the report with a televised apology ... on the day of the O.J. Simpson trial verdict.

4

Australian Electroshock Sleep Therapy Was A Fatal Nightmare

In the 1960s and '70s, Harry Bailey was a trusted Australian physician, purported to have developed a medical procedure called "deep sleep therapy." Dr. Bailey would put patients into two-week drug-induced comas with "beautiful" chemicals. Then, while they were off on their extended vacation to dreamland, he would shock the living hell out them in a way-too-literal attempt to rewire their subconscious.

Chelmsford HospitalSure it's harsh, but you need serious treatments for things like schizophrenia, drug addiction, and ... er ... PMS and weight loss.

3

A Psychiatrist Secretly Separated Twins At Birth For A Meaningless Experiment

When Robert Shafran went to college, he didn't expect to see ... himself. But there he met Edward Galland, his long-lost identical sibling. And when they got their picture in the paper, a man named David Kellman also didn't expect to see ... himselves.

2

Quebec Treated Healthy Orphans As Mentally Ill For Extra Funding

During the middle part of the 20th century, Quebec suffered through the Great Darkness -- a time of almost medieval barbarism perpetrated by its premier, Maurice Duplessis, who was the kind of conservative zealot who didn't let women go to college, thought God didn't approve of unions, and figured that the mistreatment of orphans could become the most valuable currency in the land.

Under Duplessis' leadership, Quebec found a way to squeeze beaucoup bucks out of the federal government. They realized that subsidies for mental health facilities were twice as high as those for orphanages, and in Quebec, the Catholic Church ran both. So the church and the provincial government made a scummy deal: Take all those worthless orphans and turn them into a mentally ill goldmine.

Later dubbed the "Duplessis Orphans," thousands of perfectly sane children were reclassified as mentally ill purely to help turn a profit. As a result, they were taken out of school and thrown into Catholic mental wards, where they were abused, drugged, electrocuted, and raped by sadistic staff. Eventually the Great Darkness gave way to the Quiet Revolution (which sounds a bit more appropriately Canadian) and the orphans were freed, but only after the Catholic Church made tens of millions of dollars scarring them for life.

1

The American Psychological Association Helped The Government Torture People

In the early days of the War on Terror, the Bush administration tried to justify the use of "enhanced interrogation" by having a mental health professional present at such interrogation sessions. That way, when the CIA was turning prisoners into human pretzels and employing weaponized enemas, it was perfectly legit. After all, such ethical beings would surely step in if anything was truly torture.

Helen4780/Wikimedia CommonsHmm, how Freudian.