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THE WORLD WAR II PLUTONIUM EXPERIMENTS: CONTESTED STORIES AND THEIR LESSONS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AND INFORMED CONSENT

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry volume 21, pages 161–197 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

During the Second World War medical researchers around the USAinjected 18 hospital patients with radioactive plutonium in orderto learn its effects on the body. Two documents, a newspaperaccount and a university committee report, tell divergent storiesof the scientists and patients involved in that experiment. Thisarticle uses those documents – plutonium narratives– as a catalyst for exploring the problematicrepresentation of past human experimentation, assumptions of moralprogress in medical research, and the nature of informed consenttoday. Informed consent is shown to be an evolving process anddiscursive practice that cannot be understood apart from itshistorical and cultural embeddedness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Behavioral Science, Medical Anthropology Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0612, USA

    SHARON R. KAUFMAN

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  1. SHARON R. KAUFMAN
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KAUFMAN, S.R. THE WORLD WAR II PLUTONIUM EXPERIMENTS: CONTESTED STORIES AND THEIR LESSONS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AND INFORMED CONSENT. Cult Med Psychiatry 21, 161–197 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005360928209

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005360928209

Keywords

  • Inform Consent
  • Medical Research
  • Human Experimentation
  • Hospital Patient
  • Committee Report