We all know of the diabolic experiments performed on political prisoners by the Nazis. A few are aware of the U.S. government’s Tuskeegee experiments, in which black men who went to clinics for checkups and routine treatments were injected—without their knowledge—with diseases and then monitored so that government agents could study the effects of such diseases.
But few are aware of the U.S. government’s ongoing and continuous use of non-consensual medical studies on unknowing victims. Recently it became public that the U.S. Defense Department sponsored a study at the University of Pittsburgh in which bleeding patients were given experimental plasma without their knowledge in order to observe their reactions.
A 2008 review of these consentless experiments found “a significantly increased risk” of heart attacks and death for the unknowing victims.
The Defense Department has defended giving unknowing people experimental drugs and treatments. The Department claims that it spent $6.5 million on “community awareness” and it informed people in the greater Pittsburgh area they could get free bracelets to wear at all times if they didn’t want to be unknowing experimental subjects.
Source: Laura Ungar, “Non-consent medical studies put ethics to test,” USA Today, May 29, 2015, 9A.
