from a Nottingham reader In America scientists are using mentally abnormal children as human guinea pigs. In a special research ward in the country's largest mental institute, the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, New York, retarded children are being deliberately infected with hepatitis a virus that attacks the liver and can prove fatal to adults, since 1956. More than 240 of these pathetic youngsters have contracted hepatitis after the virus has been implanted into them by doctors. Another 350 were subjected to the experiments - but did not get the disease. They are being used in an intensive research programme to produce a lasting anti-hepatitis vaccine. What is equally horrifying is the WAY in which the Willowbrook State School obtains these human guinea pigs. Naturally no child can be made to undergo such experiments without the permission of its parents - even if it is hopelessly abnormal. The scientists, however, bring pressure to bear. It could even be called blackmail, For when parents apply to hand over their child to Willowbrook they are told that there is a long waiting list, and admissions can take up to three years. A few weeks later, however, the same parents may be surprised to be told that the child could be placed IF THEY WERE WILLING TO SIGN A STATEVENT AUTHORISING ITS OSE IN RwSHARCH! A husband and wife weighed down by worry and fatigue often agree to give their mentally retarded child the opportunity of a place at the institution even at the price the scientists demand. Dr. Jack Hammond director of Willowbrook State School said "Infectious hepatitis in young children is a mild disease, but the children who develop the disease in our research programme get it in an even milder form". He admitted: "In adults hepatitis is much more dangerous, and in the past we have had a number of deaths among employees who contracted it from inmates. We have discovered that there are at least two different hepatitis viruses - and not one as was believed a few years ago", said Dr. Hammond. "One of the direct results of our research is that hepatitis cas:s among soldiers in Vietnam are far fewer than in the Korean war where the disease caused a large number of deaths." Not everyone is hanpy about the use of human guinea pigs. New York State senator Seymour Thaler, a lawyer by profession, has recently initiated a number of official investigations into hospital practices one of them being research on patients. "I am not satisfied with the way permission is being sought from parents to carry out these experiments," he said. “And it is not only children who are being used for research. Adult patients who cannot pay their hospital bilis are being used to test new drugs without being told what's happening", N.B. The material for this article appeared in the February 12th issue
of The People.