Experimentation on prisoners
Encyclopedia
Throughout history prisoners have been frequent participants in scientific, medical and social human subject research. The history of research involving prisoners has been exploitative and cruel, and many of the modern protections for human subjects evolved in response to the abuses in prisoner research. Research involving prisoners is conducted today, but prisoners are now one of the most highly protected groups of human subjects.
of Chalcedon
was reputed by Celcus, amongst others, to have vivisected
prisoners received from the Ptolemaic
kings.
, Unit 731
, located near Harbin
(Manchukuo
), experimented with prisoner vivisection
, dismemberment and induced epidemics on a very large scale from 1932 onward through the Second Sino-Japanese war
. With the expansion of the empire during World War II
, many other units were implemented in conquered cities such as Nanking (Unit 1644), Beijing
(Unit 1855
), Guangzhou
(Unit 8604
) and Singapore
(Unit 9420
). After the war, Supreme commander of occupation Douglas MacArthur
gave immunity in the name of the United States
to all members of the units in exchange for a tiny part of the results, so that in post-war Japan
, Shiro Ishii
and others continued to hold honoured positions. The United States
blocked Soviet access to this information. However, some unit members were judged by the Soviets during the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials
. The effects were lasting and China is still working to counteract the effects of buried pathogen caches.
. Biological-weapons specialist Frank Olson
's drink was spiked with LSD by Sidney Gottlieb in November 1953. He became psychotic and chronically depressed and committed suicide by jumping from the roof of his hotel ten days later.
Numerous experiments were done on prisoners throughout the US. Many prisoners eventually filed lawsuits and these actions brought about many more investigations and suits against doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1373/the_prison_as_laboratory/ Experiments included high-risk cancer treatments, the application of strong skin creams, new cosmetics, dioxin and high doses of LSD. Many incidents were documented in government reports, ACLU findings and various books including Acres of Skin
by Allen M. Hornblum. The Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
is one of many examples. The Plutonium Files
, for which Eileen Welsome
won a Pulitzer Prize, documents the early human tests of the toxicity of plutonium and uranium on people.
, Nazi human experimentation
occurred in Germany
with particular bias towards euthanasia. At the war's conclusion, 23 Nazi
doctors and scientists were tried
for the murder
of concentration camp inmates who were used as research subjects. Of the 23 professionals tried at Nuremberg
, 15 were convicted. Seven of them were condemned to death by hanging
and eight received prison sentences from 10 years to life. Eight professionals were acquitted. (Mitscherlich 1992)
The result of these proceedings was the Nuremberg Code
. It includes the following guidelines, among others, for researchers:
Requirements of Research Involving Prisoners
According to the Common Rule (45 CFR 46), prisoners may only be included in human subjects research when the research involves no more than a minimal risk of harm.Can Prisoners Consent?
Prisoners can consent, although their consent cannot be said to be completely voluntary, due to their compromised and dependant status. Their status as imprisoned human subjects becomes even more ethically problematic when investigators offer incentives such as parole, phone calls, or objects that are normally unavailable to prisoners.Ancient History
HerophilosHerophilos
Herophilos , sometimes Latinized Herophilus , was a Greek physician. Born in Chalcedon, he spent the majority of his life in Alexandria. He was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers and is deemed to be the first anatomist. Herophilos recorded his...
of Chalcedon
Chalcedon
Chalcedon , sometimes transliterated as Chalkedon) was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari . It is now a district of the city of Istanbul named Kadıköy...
was reputed by Celcus, amongst others, to have vivisected
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
prisoners received from the Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
kings.
Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II
In JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Unit 731
Unit 731
was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese...
, located near Harbin
Harbin
Harbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
(Manchukuo
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
), experimented with prisoner vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
, dismemberment and induced epidemics on a very large scale from 1932 onward through the Second Sino-Japanese war
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
. With the expansion of the empire during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, many other units were implemented in conquered cities such as Nanking (Unit 1644), Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
(Unit 1855
Unit 1855
Unit 1855 Unit 1855 Unit 1855 (第一八五五部隊）was a secret Imperial Japanese Army facility that focused on the development of biological weapons during World War II. It was operated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, in Nanjing.-See also:*Japanese war crimes...
), Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
(Unit 8604
Unit 8604
Unit 8604 or Nami Unit was a secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II era...
) and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
(Unit 9420
Unit 9420
Imperial Japanese ArmyFormed in 1942 to support the Japanese Southern Army, Unit 9420 or Oka Unit consisted of two units; the Umeoka Unit, which specialised in the plague, and the Kono Unit, which specialised in malaria....
). After the war, Supreme commander of occupation Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
gave immunity in the name of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to all members of the units in exchange for a tiny part of the results, so that in post-war Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Shiro Ishii
Shiro Ishii
was a Japanese microbiologist and the lieutenant general of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for human experimentation and war crimes during the Second Sino-Japanese War.-Early years:...
and others continued to hold honoured positions. The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
blocked Soviet access to this information. However, some unit members were judged by the Soviets during the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials
Khabarovsk War Crime Trials
Khabarovsk War Crime Trials were a series of hearings held between December 25 - 31st, 1949 in the Soviet Union's industrial city of Khabarovsk situated on the Russian Far East...
. The effects were lasting and China is still working to counteract the effects of buried pathogen caches.
United States
The MK-ULTRA project was a CIA run human experiment program where prisoners and unwitting subjects were administered hallucinogenic drugs in attempt to develop incapacitating substances and chemical mind control agents, in an operation run by Sidney GottliebSidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist probably best known for his involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency's mind control program MKULTRA.-Life:...
. Biological-weapons specialist Frank Olson
Frank Olson
Frank Olson was a U.S. Army biological warfare specialist employed at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Believed to have committed suicide in 1953 as a result of depression, it was later revealed that he had been exposed to LSD and other psychoactive drugs as part of experiments, leading some to believe...
's drink was spiked with LSD by Sidney Gottlieb in November 1953. He became psychotic and chronically depressed and committed suicide by jumping from the roof of his hotel ten days later.
Numerous experiments were done on prisoners throughout the US. Many prisoners eventually filed lawsuits and these actions brought about many more investigations and suits against doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1373/the_prison_as_laboratory/ Experiments included high-risk cancer treatments, the application of strong skin creams, new cosmetics, dioxin and high doses of LSD. Many incidents were documented in government reports, ACLU findings and various books including Acres of Skin
Acres of Skin
Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison is a 1998 book by Allen M. Hornblum, published by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-91990-8. The book documents clinical non-therapeutic medical experiments on prison inmates at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1974, conducted under the...
by Allen M. Hornblum. The Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study
The Stateville Penitentiary malaria study was a controlled study of the effects of malaria on the prisoners of Stateville Penitentiary near Joliet, Illinois in the 1940s. The study was conducted by the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago in conjunction with the United States Army...
is one of many examples. The Plutonium Files
The Plutonium Files
The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War is a 1999 book by Eileen Welsome.It is a history of U.S. government-engineered radiation experiments on unwitting Americans, based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning series Welsome wrote for the Albuquerque Tribune.The purpose of...
, for which Eileen Welsome
Eileen Welsome
Eileen Welsome is an American journalist. She received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1994 while a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune. She was awarded the prize for her articles about the government's human radiation experiments conducted on unwilling and unknowing Americans during...
won a Pulitzer Prize, documents the early human tests of the toxicity of plutonium and uranium on people.
Nazi Experimentation and Nuremberg Trials
During the second World WarWorld war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
, Nazi human experimentation
Nazi human experimentation
Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners by the Nazi German regime in its concentration camps mainly in the early 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Prisoners were coerced into participating: they did not willingly volunteer and there...
occurred in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
with particular bias towards euthanasia. At the war's conclusion, 23 Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
doctors and scientists were tried
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve U.S...
for the murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
of concentration camp inmates who were used as research subjects. Of the 23 professionals tried at Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
, 15 were convicted. Seven of them were condemned to death by hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
and eight received prison sentences from 10 years to life. Eight professionals were acquitted. (Mitscherlich 1992)
The result of these proceedings was the Nuremberg Code
Nuremberg Code
The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation set as a result of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War.-Background:...
. It includes the following guidelines, among others, for researchers:
- Informed consent is essential.
- Research should be based on prior animal workAnimal testingAnimal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
. - The risks should be justified by the anticipated benefits.
- Research must be conducted by qualified scientists.
- Physical and mental suffering must be avoided.
- Research in which death or disabling injury is expected should not be conducted.