DOCSLIB.ORG

Are Prisoners the Only Vulnerable Population?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Are Prisoners the Only Vulnerable Population? EDITORIAL Coercion in Research: Are Prisoners the Only Vulnerable Population? Barbara E. McDermott, PhD J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 41:8–13, 2013 Research plays an essential role in advancing medical (USPHS) commissioned Dr. Joseph Goldberger to and behavioral sciences and in improving our ability study the problem in an effort to find a cure.1 The to understand and treat illness. However, unlike clin- widely held belief at the time was that pellagra was ical care, which is intended for the sole benefit of the caused by some type of micro-organism. Dr. Gold- patient, research has the broader goal of advancing berger began observational studies and formulated knowledge and does not necessarily provide the sub- the hypothesis that diet was primarily responsible for ject with an ensured clinical benefit, raising obvious the disease. To test this theory, he recruited 11 pris- ethics-related concerns and making voluntary con- oners from Rankin State Prison in Mississippi to un- sent to participate essential. For certain participant dergo dietary modifications in an effort to induce populations, consent may be problematic. Such in- pellagra in these otherwise healthy volunteers. In ex- dividuals include those who may be unable to make change for their participation, the prisoners were informed, voluntary decisions about participation in promised a full pardon. After five months, during research, either because of impairments in cognition which time several prisoners began to develop symp- or reasoning or because they live in an environment toms of the disease, the study concluded, with 6 that is potentially coercive. of the 11 evidencing symptoms of pellagra. During those months, inmates who developed the disease History of Research on Prisoners suffered so greatly that some were willing to forgo the Prisoners are considered a group of individuals pardon to discontinue the study. for whom coercion is a major concern, primarily be- A much more extreme example highlighting the cause of the supposition that prisons are inherently subtlety of the coercive process was the malaria study coercive institutions. Previous research conducted at Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois.2 The prison was on prisoners makes the rationale for this evident. built as a panopticon, meaning that the housing units Historically, prisoners have been considered an ideal were arranged in a circle surrounding a central tower. population on which to conduct research because A guard was placed in the tower but was not visible to they are readily accessible and in a controlled envi- the inmates. Thus, the guard could be watching the ronment. As an example, in the early 1900s, pellagra inmates at any time without their knowledge, impos- had reached epidemic levels in the rural southern ing a subtle form of authority. During World War II, United States. The U.S. Public Health Service malaria was devastating U.S. soldiers fighting in the Pacific Ocean theatre. At that time, quinine was the Dr. McDermott is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Division of Psy- chiatry and the Law, Department of Psychiatry, UC Davis School of only effective treatment, although supplies were lim- Medicine, Sacramento, CA. Address correspondence to: Barbara E. ited. Between 1942 and 1945, the United States re- McDermott, PhD, UC Davis School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Psychiatry and the Law, 2230 Stockton Bou- portedly lost eight million man-days to the disease. levard, Sacramento, CA 95817. E-mail: [email protected]. In 1944, the malaria studies began at Stateville Peni- Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None. tentiary. Although inmates were not promised early 8 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law McDermott release initially, the governor of Illinois eventually tested a polio vaccine on prisoners at the Federal guaranteed that all inmate participants would have Reformatory in Ohio because he believed that the their parole decisions reviewed at the end of their vaccine was not yet ready for the general public; Dr. sentences. It ultimately was determined that inmates Jonas Salk’s use of Michigan inmates in his work participating in the malaria studies were released an with the influenza vaccine; and Sloane-Kettering’s average of two years earlier than were nonpartici- collaboration with Ohio State University and the use pants. At the initial announcement of the effort, 200 of prisoners in Ohio for cancer research that involved volunteers were solicited; 487 men offered their ser- injecting live cancer cells into supposed volunteers. vices. Although the prisoners signed consents for Although the Green Committee encouraged the dis- these studies, no risks were mentioned in the consent closure of risks to each prisoner, there were no pro- forms. According to reports from the infamous in- cedures in place to ensure that such a disclosure oc- mate Nathan Leopold,3 each volunteer was fully ap- curred. Researchers were left with the responsibility prised verbally of the risks; one risk was death. Yet, of assuring that participants knew the risks associated inmates volunteered in increasing numbers. As a re- with the studies and were presumed to police them- sult of these studies, brought to light during the selves in this regard. Nuremberg trials as evidence that the United States In 1962, the thalidomide scandal changed Food had also performed atrocious medical studies on pris- and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations regard- oners, the Governor of Illinois (Dwight Herbert ing drug testing. Thalidomide was routinely admin- Green) convened a committee (dubbed the Green istered to pregnant women in Europe for the control Committee) to determine the conditions under of nausea. Although the FDA withheld approval of which prisoners could serve as subjects in medical thalidomide for use in the United States, thousands experiments and whether a reduction in sentence of U.S. women, many of child-bearing age (includ- could be offered as a reward for such service.4 Pub- ing some who were pregnant), participated in studies lished, in part, in the Journal of the American Medical conducted by pharmaceutical companies on its safety Association in 19485 were three rules that the com- and efficacy. When the link between thalidomide mittee proposed for conducting medical research on and birth defects became clear, the FDA modified its prisoners: consent must be obtained in the absence of procedures for drug testing and ultimately required coercion and with knowledge of the potential risks; that such studies be conducted in three phases. Phase the studies must be based on the results of animal 1 studies required the use of healthy subjects to eval- experimentation and on knowledge of the natural uate the safety of experimental medication (Phases 2 history of the disease, and must be expected to yield and 3 were for establishing efficacy). Prisoners were results not obtainable in any other fashion; and the ideal subjects for Phase 1 studies. They were willing study must be conducted by scientifically qualified to accept more risk for less money and, according to personnel and avoid unnecessary physical or emo- the assistant medical director of one pharmaceutical tional suffering, and there should be no reason to company, were guaranteed to show up. Medical re- believe that death or a disabling injury would occur. search in prisons continued to grow. One particu- The ultimate conclusion of the committee was that larly egregious example was a study by Dr. Austin medical research could be conducted ethically with Stough, an Oklahoma physician who used prisoners prisoners if those criteria were met and, to avoid un- in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alabama for drug and due influence or coercion, the reduction of sentence blood plasma studies in mostly unregulated condi- was not excessive. tions. One report indicated that in a prison in Ala- With the endorsement of the American Medical bama, 28 percent of the prisoners participating in Association, medical research on prisoners flour- Dr. Stough’s studies developed viral hepatitis com- ished. In the last year of World War II, the National pared with 1 percent of the prisoners who did not Institutes of Health received approximately participate. One inmate was quoted as saying, $700,000 in federal funding; by 1955, this amount “They’re dropping like flies out here.”7 The studies increased to $36 million and reached $1.5 billion conducted in Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania by 1970.6 Much of this funding was allocated to further illustrated the abuse of prisoners for medical medical research that was conducted on prisoners. research. Prisoners were routinely used for testing Noteworthy examples include Dr. Albert Sabin, who of cosmetics, details of which were documented by Volume 41, Number 1, 2013 9 Coercion in Research Allen Hornblum in his book, Acres of Skin: Human oping guidelines for the ethical conduct of research; Experiments at Holmesburg Prison.8 The title was de- the Belmont Report,10 named for the conference rived from a comment by Dr. Albert Kligman, a center in which it was penned, was drafted in re- professor of dermatology at the University of Penn- sponse to this charge. The report described three ba- sylvania Medical School. When he first entered the sic principles of ethical research: respect for persons: prison, he reportedly recalled in a newspaper inter- persons should be treated as autonomous, and if au- view: “All I saw before me were acres of skin. It was tonomy is diminished, additional protections should like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time” be in place; beneficence: human subjects should not (Ref. 8, p 37). be harmed and the research should maximize bene- Although not conducted on prisoners, the Tus- fits and minimize risk; and justice: benefits and risks kegee syphilis study set in motion a chain of events of research should be distributed fairly.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Care and Custody in a Pennsylvania Prison
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Wards Of The State: Care And Custody In A Pennsylvania Prison Nicholas Iacobelli University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Iacobelli, Nicholas, "Wards Of The State: Care And Custody In A Pennsylvania Prison" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2350. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2350 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2350 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Wards Of The State: Care And Custody In A Pennsylvania Prison Abstract In this dissertation, I examine the challenges and contradictions as well as the expectations and aspirations involved in the provision of healthcare to inmates in a maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania. In 1976, the Supreme Court granted inmates a constitutional right to healthcare based on the notion that a failure to do so would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.” Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork from 2014-2016 in the prison’s medical unit with inmates, healthcare providers, and correctional staff, I demonstrate how the legal infrastructure built around this right to healthcare operates in practice and the myriad effects it has for those in state custody. Through traversing the scales of legal doctrine, privatized managed care, and collective historical memory, bringing these structural components to life in personal narratives and clinical interactions, I advance the notion that the physical space of the prison’s medical unit is a “ward of the state” – a space of care where the state itself is “made” through interactions among individuals who relay and enact the legal regulations on inmate healthcare.
    [Show full text]
  • Acres of Skin
    J7ournal ofMedical Ethics 1999;25:353-358 J Med Ethics: first published as 10.1136/jme.25.4.353 on 1 August 1999. Downloaded from Book reviews Acres of Skin Nazi reference is convenient but slip- be judged inadequate. In general the shod. At the centre of Nazi transgres- prisoners were so attracted by the sion was a public policy-enforced by compensation that, after twenty years Allen M Hornblum, New York and a ruthless dictator-which declared of experimentation the participants London, Routledge, 1998, 297 pages, whole subgroups within human soci- were angry when two of their col- £19.99. ety to have "lives not worth living". leagues testified against the experi- The willing complicity of many Ger- ments before congress (page 198). Acres of Skin presents an angry, mans and German physicians with However imperfect the consent might distressing and provoking description these policies remains a huge warning have been, we must conclude that of human experimentation within the to all of us. Nevertheless, it was in the consent was obtained for these experi- American prison system. Specifically, context of the totalitarian govern- ments. it focuses upon experiments con- ments that the great transgressions Hornblum suggests that many pris- ducted by investigators from the Uni- against human dignity occurred in the oners were injured by their participa- versity of Pennsylvania at the nearby Holmesburg Prison, from 1951 until twentieth century. In Nazi Germany tion, but does not objectively docu- experiments designed to involve severe ment the extent and seriousness of 1974. The research was halted follow- ing congressional hearings in 1973 suffering, often to end in the death of such injuries.
    [Show full text]
  • Naturalnews.Com Printable Article Vaccines and Medical Experiments
    Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 - ... Page 1 of 17 NaturalNews.com printable article Originally published December 14 2007 Chronic Back Pain Relief Are you HIV Positive? HCV and HIV Positive? New Breakthrough FDA Cleared Non Take a quick survey, compare yours to Learn About What's New in Liver Disease Surgical Pain Relief, no Down Time people just like you. Join Free! Research by Contacting NIH www.SeattleBackPain.com www.patientslikeme.com www.niaid.nih.gov/ Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 - 2007) by Mike Adams, NaturalNews Editor Think U.S. health authorities have never conducted outrageous medical experiments on children, women, minorities, homosexuals and inmates? Think again: This timeline, originally put together by Dani Veracity (a NaturalNews reporter), has been edited and updated with recent vaccination experimentation programs in Maryland and New Jersey. Here's what's really happening in the United States when it comes to exploiting the public for medical experimentation: (1845 - 1849) J. Marion Sims, later hailed as the "father of gynecology," performs medical experiments on enslaved African women without anesthesia . These women would usually die of infection soon after surgery. Based on his belief that the movement of newborns' skull bones during protracted births causes trismus, he also uses a shoemaker's awl, a pointed tool shoemakers use to make holes in leather, to practice moving the skull bones of babies born to enslaved mothers ( Brinker ). (1895) New York pediatrician Henry Heiman infects a 4-year-old boy whom he calls "an idiot with chronic epilepsy" with gonorrhea as part of a medical experiment ( "Human Experimentation: Before the Nazi Era and After" ).
    [Show full text]
  • IN Support of Prisoner Participation in Clinical Trials
    .. Beneficial and Unusual Punishment: An Argument IN Support of Prisoner Participation IN Clinical Trials Sharona Hoffman* Introduction Until the last few decades of the Twentieth Century, prisoners were widely used in biomedical experimentation in the United States.' Prisoners served as test subjects for substances ranging from perfume, soap, and cosmetics, to dioxin, psychological warfare agents, and radioactive isotopes.^ By 1 969, eighty-five percent of new drugs were tested on incarcerated persons in forty-two prisons,^ and prisoners in the United States were even utilized to test drugs for researchers in other countries."* In the following decade investigations revealed that prisoners who were the subjects of clinical research often suffered serious adverse consequences and severe abuses. Allen Homblum, who, in his book Acres ofSkin, wrote a moving expose of medical research that was conducted in one prison, stated in an early chapter: For two decades—from the early 1950s to the early 1970s—Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison played host to one of the largest and most varied medical experimentation centers in the country. Only the inmates, and the doctors who experimented on them, know just exactly what took place, but whereas the latter choose not to discuss their earlier medical exploits, the prisoners are not asked. In that respect, Holmesburg is little different from the dozens of other institutions that contained vulnerable populations and [sic] were exploited in the name of scientific advancement. This sad but wide-spread twentieth-century phenomenon has much to teach us about our ethical standards and our capacity for human compassion.^ In light ofthe discovery of severe research abuses, several entities, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the American Correctional Association, and the * Assistant Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
    [Show full text]
  • The Captive Lab Rat: Human Medical Experimentation in the Carceral State
    Boston College Law Review Volume 61 Issue 1 Article 2 1-29-2020 The Captive Lab Rat: Human Medical Experimentation in the Carceral State Laura I. Appleman Willamette University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr Part of the Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Disability Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Medical Jurisprudence Commons Recommended Citation Laura I. Appleman, The Captive Lab Rat: Human Medical Experimentation in the Carceral State, 61 B.C.L. Rev. 1 (2020), https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol61/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CAPTIVE LAB RAT: HUMAN MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CARCERAL STATE LAURA I APPLEMAN INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 2 I. A HISTORY OF CAPTIVITY AND EXPERIMENTATION .................................................................... 4 A. Asylums and Institutions ........................................................................................................ 5 B. Orphanages, Foundling
    [Show full text]
  • House of Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
    HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ********** Medical Facilities and Practices within the Department of Corrections ********** House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crimes and Corrections City Hall Building Room 201 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, February 22, 1999 - 1:00 p.m. --0O0-- JEFORE: Honorable Jerry Birmelin, Majority Chairperson Honorable Harold James, Minority Chairperson Honorable Joseph Petrarca lonorable Donald Walko lonorable LeAnna Washington KEY REPORTERS 1300 Garrison Drive, York PA 17404 (717) 764-7801 Fax (717)764-6367 ^LSO PRESENT: David Bloomer Majority Research Analyst CONTENTS WITNESSES PAGE Honorable Harold James, Min. Chairperson 7 Subcommittee on Crime & Corrections PA Department of Corrections Martin F. Horn, Secretary 11 Dr. Fred Maue, Medical Director 27 Catherine McVey, Director 28 Bureau of Healthcare Services Angus Love 2 9 PA Prison Society, Board of Directors Allen M. Hornblum, Author 49 Acres of Skin Nan Feyler, Esquire 76 Director, AIDS Law Project of PA Larry Frankel, Esquire 99 ACLU of Pennsylvania Concerned Citizens Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman 111 Leodus Jones 119 Edward Anthony 125 Dorothy Alston 134 Alfonso Skorski 142 Joseph Smith 149 William Harper 156 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good afternoon. We rould like to welcome you. The subcommittee on Irimes and Corrections is conducting this hearing, Llthough the members of the full committee are Llways invited to attend. And there will be several here. Some are iere already. I will take the time to introduce :hem. First of all, let me tell you that I am :he chairman of the subcommittee. My name is representative Jerry Birmelin, and my district is .n Wayne and Pike Counties. And I'll ask the other members who are Lere to introduce themselves and tell us where rour district is.
    [Show full text]
  • Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2014 “Happy Trials to You” Should Dermatology Be Celebrating Albert M. Kligman?
    Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2014 “Happy Trials to You” Should Dermatology Be Celebrating Albert M. Kligman? By Norman M. Goldfarb In 2007, the Society for Investigative Dermatology (SID) established the annual Albert M. Kligman/Phillip Frost Leadership Lecture and Award. According to the original solicitation for nominees, “The award is made possible by the generosity of Dr. Phillip Frost and will be presented to an individual in acknowledgement of significant contributions to the understanding of structure and function of skin, preferably in the past five years. A $25,000 honorarium accompanies the award.” Phillip Frost, MD, (1935-) has served as Professor of Dermatology at the School of Medicine, University of Miami; Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center of Greater Miami; Chairman of the Board of Directors of Key Pharmaceuticals; and Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Ivax Corporation, among other accomplishments. Dr. Frost worked as a resident under Dr. Kligman at Holmesburg Prison. Albert M. Kligman, MD (1916-2010) was a figure of great controversy. On one hand, he made major contributions to the field of dermatology, especially related to the use of tretinoin (Retin-A) to treat acne and wrinkles. On the other hand, his grossly unethical research on prisoners at Holmesburg Prison made him the most notorious violator of clinical research ethics in U.S. history. Prior to that, he conducted actively harmful studies on children with intellectually disabilities at the State Colonies for the Feebleminded in Vineland and Woodbine, New Jersey. While Dr. Kligman was hardly alone in blatantly violating fundamental human rights, other clinical research atrocities are known by their location (e.g., Tuskegee) or their victim (e.g., Jesse Gelsinger).
    [Show full text]
  • Systemic Medical Racism: the Reconstruction of Whiteness Through the Destruction of Black Bodies
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern University Honors Program Theses 2019 Systemic Medical Racism: The Reconstruction of Whiteness Through the Destruction of Black Bodies. Julisha S. Ford Georgia Southern University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses Part of the African American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Ford, Julisha S., "Systemic Medical Racism: The Reconstruction of Whiteness Through the Destruction of Black Bodies." (2019). University Honors Program Theses. 403. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/honors-theses/403 This thesis (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Honors Program Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 0 Systemic Medical Racism: The Reconstruction of Whiteness Through the Destruction of Black Bodies. An Honors Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in History. By Julisha Ford Under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Bryant Abstract The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was a non-therapeutic medical study on the effects of untreated syphilis on African American men. From 1932-1972 the Public Health Service of the United States, with the aid of various local doctors, conducted the study on 400 black men of Macon County in Tuskegee, Alabama. The black subjects of the study were not aware that treatment would be withheld nor the purpose of their examination. The legacy of the study has led to discussions on the influence of white authority in medicine and the use of black bodies for intellectual advancement.
    [Show full text]
  • A Biref History of Human Experiments
    A Biref History of Human Experiments 1718 George I offers free pardon to any inmate of Newgate Prison who agrees to be inoculated with infectious small pox in variolation experiment. You can read about this in one of our history articles, in the section: The History of Innoculation. 1796 Edward Jenner injects healthy eight-year-old James Phillips first with cowpox then three months later with smallpox and is hailed as discoverer of smallpox vaccine. 1845-1849 J. Marion Sims, the "Father of Gynecology" in the United States, conducts gynecological experiments on slaves in South Carolina. You can read more on Dr Sims in our Biographies. 1865 French physiologist Claude Bernard publishes "Introduction to the Study of Human Experimentation," advising: "Never perform an experiment which might be harmful to the patient even though highly advantageous to science or the health of others. 1874 Cincinnati physician Roberts Bartholow conducts brain surgery experiments on Mary Rafferty, a 30 year- old domestic servant dying of an infected ulcer. 1891 Prussian State legislates that a treatment for tuberculosis cannot be given to prisoners without their consent. 1892 Albert Neisser injects women with serum from patients with Syphilis, infecting half of them. 1896 Dr. Arthur Wentworth performs spinal taps on 29 children at Children's Hospital in Boston to determine if procedure is harmful. 1897 Italian bacteriologist Sanarelli injects five subjects with bacillus searching for a causative agent for yellow fever. 1900 Walter Reed injects 22 Spanish immigrant workers in Cuba with the agent for yellow fever paying them $100 if they survive and $200 if they contract the disease.
    [Show full text]
  • The Exploitation of Inmates: Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Experiment By
    The Exploitation of Inmates: Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Experiment By Katelyn Kalata Western Illinois University Testing on humans for the advancement of science took off during the 1940s, particularly in the United States and Europe. While German concentration camps were becoming known worldwide by the mid-1940s, they were not the only location where human testing occurred during that time period. Following World War II, the defense team in the Nuremberg Trials pointed its attention to the United States. Stateville Correctional Center, located in Crest Hill, Illinois, was one of the many institutions that used an imprisoned population to research diseases and to experiment with different forms of medical treatments and vaccines. Stateville was mentioned during the Nuremberg Trials to justify Nazi experimentation, and the ethical issues related to the “Malaria Project” are still analyzed by researchers today.1 Given the title of a “project” because of its prolonged nature and unforeseen end-date, Nathaniel Comfort is one of the several scholars who examine how this experiment was different than a typical research study.2 Another critical person mentioned throughout this essay is infamous inmate Nathan Leopold. Leopold served as a participant and as a lab assistant. He wrote an autobiography describing the experience, thus, providing scholars with an inside look of what the project looked like. Considering his perspective through reading his autobiography and while analyzing the ethics behind the experiment, it becomes clear that the impact the environment has on a person’s psyche can be profound. A significant source for the research of this essay relies on Leopold’s perspective; however, a variety of primary and secondary sources used throughout this essay 1 “On October 18, 1945, twenty-two of Nazi Germany's political, military, and economic leaders were brought to trial in Nuremberg for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
    [Show full text]
  • Experimentation on Prisoners: Persistent Dilemmas in Rights and Regulations
    Experimentation on Prisoners: Persistent Dilemmas in Rights and Regulations Keramet Reitert INTRODUCTION Between 1965 and 1966, Dr. Albert M. Kligman exposed approximately seventy-five prisoners at Holmesburg prison in Pennsylvania to high doses of dioxin, the main poisonous ingredient in Agent Orange.1 Dow Chemical paid Dr. Kligman $10,000 to conduct the experiments on the toxicity effects of this Vietnam War-era chemical warfare agent. Dr. Kligman exposed prisoners to a dosage 468 times greater than that in the Dow Chemical protocol for the experiments. 2 Records from the experiments have been destroyed, and the Environmental Protection Agency's 1981 investigation into the matter failed to identify the exact participants, rendering the long-term effects of the exposure untraceable. 3 Nonetheless, prisoners who participated in dermatological experiments under Dr. Kligman's hand in 1965 and 1966 report that they still experience scars, blisters, cysts, and ongoing rashes.4 Indeed, at least two prisoners filed lawsuits against Dow Chemical in the 1980s for the exposure they suffered in the 1960s; both settled their claims for undisclosed sums.5 Dr. Kligman is perhaps better known for developing the skin treatment Retin-A, at Copyright © 2009 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. t J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), expected 2009; Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California, Berkeley, expected 2012; M.A., John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York 2006; B.A., Harvard University 2003.
    [Show full text]
  • Vol. 2, No. 4, April 2006 “Can You Handle the Truth?” Acres of Skin
    Vol. 2, No. 4, April 2006 “Can You Handle the Truth?” Acres of Skin: The Lost Chapter Editor’s note: In 1998, Allen M. Hornblum published the book “Acres of Skin,” a fascinating account of clinical research at Holmesburg prison. We are honored to make this unpublished chapter available to the public for the first time. The book is still in print… – NMG A Conspiracy of Silence By Allen M. Hornblum I According to many of its proud graduates, the Dermatology Department of the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania has had nothing short of a profound influence on the “rise of dermatology” in America. Considered a “static, superficial medical sub-division” throughout most of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, many Penn dermatology grads believe it would still be an undesired, backwater specialty for those who couldn’t quite cut it in more rigorous fields, if it was not for the considerable talents and contributions of several extraordinary Penn physicians.1 Though many of his disciples accord Dr. Albert M. Kligman the honor of this singular achievement, the more historically minded see the true beginnings of Penn’s unique dermatological success story originating with Dr. Louis A. Duhring, a Philadelphian of affluent, German parentage who single-handedly labored to upgrade dermatology from a “superficial specialty” to a bonafide medical department in post-Civil War America. Duhring opened the Philadelphia Dispensary for Skin Diseases in 1871, and its clinic became the training ground for some of the nation’s most accomplished dermatologists. The growth and respect for Penn’s dermatology program continued over the decades and was periodically enhanced by such distinguished physicians as John H.
    [Show full text]