Publisher's Weekly Review
In this horrifying and painstakingly documented history, Hornblum (Acres of Skin), Penn State associate professor Newman, and medical writer Dober examine the stories of victims of poorly regulated medical experimentation in America in the 1950s and '60s to illustrate the chilling legacy of negative eugenics-the sickening imperative to prevent the survival and reproduction of the least fit-and the push by the 20th-century medical establishment to find cures and treatments by using children as human guinea pigs. Thousands of institutionalized children-"cheaper than lab animals and less problematic to deal with than adults"-became unwitting subjects of scientific investigation, and their stories are haunting: in order to better understand hepatitis, for example, scientists fed feces laced with the virus to mentally retarded "volunteers." The resulting medical breakthroughs and vaccines are now deemed indispensable, but their price was far too high. Ted Chabasinski, snatched from a foster home and dumped in Bellevue Hospital for shock treatments at the age of six wrote years later: "The little boy who had been taken there to be tortured didn't exist anymore. All that was left of him was a few scraps of memory and a broken spirit..." At least now, their voices are heard. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The harrowing story of the exploitation of institutionalized children in American medical research. Until the late 20th century, doctors routinely experimented on the so-called idiots, morons and feebleminded of America's orphanages and hospitals to test vaccines and procedures. Warehoused in places like the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth, the "genetically unfit" became ready test subjects for cure-seeking researchers from MIT, Harvard and other universities. In their revealing account, Hornblum (Sentenced to Science: One Black Man's Story of Imprisonment in America, 2007, etc.), Newman (Human Development and Family Studies/Penn State, Abington) and medical journalist Dober focus on the personal motives and societal forces that prompted this dark, little-understood chapter in medical history. The publication of Paul De Kruif's best-selling Microbe Hunters (1926) and other admiring books glorified medical researchers and convinced the public that doctors could do no wrong, and the eugenics movement taught disdain for the weak and institutionalized. Ultimately, the feebleminded became convenient test subjects for unethical experimentation. Many researchers, including dermatologists, dentists and psychologists, were motivated by noble causes; others sought fame and wealth. Like policemen upholding the "blue wall of silence," the medical establishment looked the other way, knowing full well that experiments involving radiation and crude lobotomies were harmful and conducted without parental consent. The book is filled with vivid stories of researchers, many well-known, spurred on by Cold War pressures to discover cures and preventives, who experimented on children with fungicides, radioactive milk, LSD and birth-control injections. Their work stemmed from "an exploitative ethos that reeked of both eugenics and paternalism," write the authors, who note that these unethical practices ended several decades ago with the introduction of medical safeguards and oversight committees. They also write that U.S. drug testing has been conducted in China, India and other nations ever since. A somewhat overwritten eye-opener about medical advances achieved on the backs of society's weakest members.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
This well-researched, thought-provoking book tells the unsettling story of the exploited children who were unwilling medical research subjects throughout much of the 20th century. The children, considered "feebleminded" and confined to orphanages and state-controlled institutions, became guinea pigs for vaccine testing and a wide spectrum of medical experiments. Researchers selected these children because they believed that they did not need permission from parents and that the children would at least "make some type of contribution to society." Hornblum (writer; Sentenced to Science, CH, May'08, 45-5027), Newman (human development, Penn State), and Dober (medical journalist) detail the grim reality of the unregulated use of these defenseless subjects, explaining researchers' motivations and related societal influences. Medical researchers, dentists, and psychologists operated in an atmosphere where the medical establishment turned a blind eye to their experiments. This very revealing work should give readers an extra incentive to maintain high vigilance that these sins are never repeated. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic, professional, and general biomedical ethics collections. R. G. McGee Jr. formerly, Walters State Community College
