Allen M. Hornblum is a prolific author known around Pennsylvania
especially as a prison reformer. Judith L. Newman teaches human
development at the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State
University. Gregory J. Dober writes primarily about medical
issues, with Prison Legal News serving as an outlet. They have
been collecting information about medical experiments on the
helpless for a long, long time.
Their exposé is more historical than contemporary. That is
because most of the dreadful practices they document gradually
halted as government regulators and scientists with consciences
blew the whistle on the book's various villains. Frequently, the
authors take readers back to the 19th century to aid
understanding of how such horrific experiments evolved. Mostly,
though, the book is set during the Cold War, as the subtitle
suggests. The researchers featured most prominently conducted
the bulk of their experiments during the 1940s, 1950s, and
1960s.
The evidence is set out chronologically for a while. Then the
authors switch to a subject-matter approach, documenting
research on vulnerable humans in the realms of vaccines meant to
fight scourges such as polio; dietary variations meant to
determine how various deprivations affect teeth and skin as well
as overall health; radiation exposure; brain manipulations
through surgeries such as lobotomies; intense psychological
interventions that spilled over into brainwashing; and female
reproduction research not only on women but also on children in
their wombs.
Given the Pennsylvania orientation of the authors, it is no
surprise that some of the horror stories are set inside mental
hospitals, orphanages, and other institutions for the vulnerable
throughout the state. One searing case study involves the
Pennhurst School in Chester County. Founded during the opening
decade of the 20th century as a warehouse for the
"feebleminded," by the 1940s it had evolved into a hunting
ground for researchers seeking "volunteers" to be injected with
dangerous substances related to the search for a hepatitis cure.
Nobody asked the study subjects, mostly ages 10 through 15, for
their permission, and nobody compensated the subjects for their
suffering.
One of the few heroines in the book is Pat Clapp, who in 1973
was serving as president of the Pennsylvania Association for
Retarded Children. The authors devote a chapter to Clapp's
campaign to halt cruel vaccine research on helpless children
after hearing from a distraught parent about what was occurring
at Hamburg, a residential institution for the retarded located
near Reading.
Against Their Will is
not the first book to document the horrors, and the authors give
credit where credit is due. There is something fresh about their
take on the subject, though. In their own words, previous books
have not combined in the same manner "a pointed and frank
conversation about the motivating factors that allowed so many
physicians and researchers to subscribe to a system and
professional ethic that routinely placed infants and children in
harm's way. Or why society seemed indifferent to the practice,
especially when it was occurring in the one nation that felt it
necessary to punish the Nazi doctors for their many ethical
transgressions and brutal medical experiments. The ethically
toxic alchemy of the eugenics movement, World War II, and the
threat of Communism during the Cold War played a significant
part in allowing some of our best and brightest to cavalierly
exploit some of our youngest and those most deserving of
protection. An accurate accounting and discussion of this sad
phenomenon is long overdue."
The accounting is no longer overdue, thanks to the justified
moral outrage and impressive information-gathering efforts of
these three authors.
Steve Weinberg is the author of eight nonfiction books. He is
currently researching a biography of Garry Trudeau.
