US History

Warning: this section concerns many NSFW topics, including war crimes, imperialism, and human rights violations. Nothing linked is graphic in nature, but still may not be suitable for all.

US Unethical Human Experiments

Unethical human experimentation in the United States"


From 1913 to 1951, researchers at state-run San Quentin Prison in California experimented on 100s of prisoners with testicular implants.

  • Surgically implanting the testicles of executed prisoners into life ones, as well as implanting the testicles of rams/male sheep, goats and boars into living prisoners. The researchers believed in Eugenics and that this could improve people's health and control crime.

  • US Army doctors in the Philippines infected 5 prisoners with the plague and introduced other diseases to 29 prisoners, 4 of whom died. A Harvard Professor also gave 24 prisoners cholera AND the plague, killing 13 of them.

  • From 1932 to 1972, the US Public Health Service gave 399 impoverished black men in Tuskegee, Alabama free treatment for the disease. However, they simply did not treat them and studied the disease. Despite treatment in the form of penicillin becoming available in 1947, researchers blocked participants from seeking further treatment and lied to them about their condition. The study was shut down in 1972 in response to massive public outrage fueled by the media, but 128 had died of syphilis or related conditions.

  • Throughout the 1940s, the US Army, State Department and Department of Medicine and the University of Chicago gave prisoners and psychiatric patients in Illinois malaria without their consent in order to test treatment. At the Nuremberg trials, Nazi doctors cited the precedent of the malaria experiments as part of their defense.

  • From 1946 to 1948 in Guatemala, US researchers secretly gave prostitutes, prisoners, soldiers, children and asylum patients in Guatemala syphilis and other STIs without their informed consent. 700 people were infected and 83 people died. The US government apologised to Guatemala in 2010.

  • From 1950 to 1969, the US Navy sprayed bacteria over San Francisco, leading to numerous citizens becoming ill and at least 1 person dying. The family of the man who died sued the government and lost in 1981.

  • From the 1950s to 1972, disabled children in state-run schools in New York were given hepatitis to help discover a vaccine. Children were fed an extract made from the shit of other children in order to transmit the disease.

  • From 1963 to 1969, the US Army sprayed several navy ships with biological and chemical warfare agents while US military personnel were on board, agents used included Sarin, VX and Sulfur Dioxide. The personnel were not notified of the tests, and were not given any protective clothing.

  • In 1966 the US Army released bacteria into the tunnels of subway trains in New York City and Chicago.

  • In 1949 the US Atomic Energy Commission released radioactive materials across a 2,000kmsq area that included 3 small towns.

  • In 1953 the US Atomic Energy Commission gave 118 newborns radioactive materials across 3 different studies without the consent of their mothers.

  • From 1955 to 1960, a government-run hospital in Northern California performed non-consensual experiments on disabled children. Over 1,400 people were killed during these experiments.

  • From 1946 to 1953, the US Atomic Energy Commission sponsored a study in which 73 disabled children were fed radioactive cereal.

  • In the 1950s, the US Army and Atomic Energy Commission funded a study where poor and black burn victims were given radiation, increasing the death rate significantly.

  • From 1948 to 1954, federally-funded researchers inserted radium rods into the noses of 582 schoolchildren in Baltimore without their consent.

  • In 1956, a government-run school for disabled children had researchers feed children radioactive materials and inject them into babies.

  • From 1961 to 1962, 10 prison inmates in Utah State Prison had their blood mixed with radioactive materials.

  • In 1957, there were enough nuclear explosions in Nevada to have released enough radiation to cause cancer in 11,000 to 212,000 people. It's been estimated that between 1,100 and 21,000 people died as a result.

  • In the 1950s, researchers in the USA (and UK and Australia) literally stole bones from graveyards to see how radiation would effect them.

  • From 1960 to 1971, the Department of Defense funded a study in which more than 90, poor black cancer patients were irradiated, causing intense pain and vomiting.

  • From 1942 to 1944, the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service conducted experiments which exposed thousands of U.S. military personnel to mustard gas, in order to test the effectiveness of gas masks and protective clothing.

  • From 1950 to 1953 the US Army sprayed chemicals over 6 US and Canadian cities.

  • From 1951 to 1974, the US Army funded a study at Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania injected 70 prisoners with dioxin, a chemical in Agent Orange.

  • In 1950?, CIA-funded researchers dosed 7,000 soldiers with LSD without their consent in Maryland, leading 1,000 of whom to develop serious mental illnesses later in life and many attempted suicide.

  • In 1952 a Department of Defense funded researcher killed a professional tennis player with a fatal dose of a mescaline derivative. The Department of Justicy and New York State Attorney General concealed their involvement for 23 years.

  • In 1953 a weapons researcher who had been given LSD without his knowledge and consent fell to his death. Although suicide was the first explanation, doubts have since been raised by his family who suspected a CIA-linked murder.

  • In the 1950s, a CIA-funded network of brothels in San Francisco saw prostitutes paid by the CIA to secretly give clients LSD without their knowledge as CIA agents watched behind one-way glass.

  • Starting in 1957, CIA-funded researchers in Montreal, Canada attempted to brainwash people by forcing 1 person into a coma for 88 days and forced 1 person to stay awake for 101 listening to the same message on repeat. His staff sexually abused the subjects, which included children.

  • 1 Child in MKUltra was filmed having sex with high-ranking federal government officials so CIA researchers could blackmail the officials for further funding.

Domestic Rights Abuses

AIDS Abandonment
Operation MKUltra

Foreign Human Rights Abuses/Imperialism

Other