Poison with your Cheerios?

SYNOPSIS From 1946 to 1956, 19 boys who thought they were participating in a science club were fed radioactive milk by researchers who wanted to learn about the digestive system. The experiments were performed at a state school in Massachusetts. Researchers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fed radioactive forms of iron and calcium to the boys, sometimes in their breakfast milk, to study the body's ability to digest minerals.

COMMENT This is medical. I think it speaks volumes to how many in the medical industry view themselves versus the rest of humanity. For that reason I suspect that it was screened according to the standards of the day in medical research and approved without a second thought by the medical gods. This is basic Golden Rule stuff, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" (for those who skipped Bible School). It is a sad demonstration of why some think of the Hippocratic Oath as the Hypocritic Oath. These folks deserve jail time (IMHO). But there is no sense in which industrial-strength reviewing of Social Science proposals is connected to nor justified by this sorry incident.

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