11 ms·

Project Operation Whitecoat (2010)

107 points by smegger001 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
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aredox 2y ago
It's funny; unethical human experimentation during that period is often excused as "it was common practice at the time" (to "forget" to consult patients before enrolling them into experiments), and here we have people of the same period making sure to follow proper ethical procedures... (The same way that even at the time slavery was common - be it XIXth century or Antique Greece - there were already quite a lot of people revulsed by it...)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sofixa 2y ago
  For what it's worth, enrolling patients without consent in unnecessary procedures still happens today. There's even a whole Wiki article about one category of those (which was banned in France in 2016, and US in 2024, but probably remains legal and pervasive in a lot of other countries): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_examinations_under_anesthesia_by_medical_students_without_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_examinations_under_anes...
  - thimkerbell 2y ago
    Isn't experimentation.
    - timewizard 2y ago
      I'm sure the patients are comforted by the difference.
      - rendaw 2y ago
        I think GP's point is that calling it experimentation euphemizes it.
  - tdeck 2y ago
    Unbelievable that this was and is a thing and that I've never heard of it before.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  Which Antique Greece was revulsed by slavery? It wasn't the democracy of Athens... >Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    "there were already quite a lot of people revulsed by it...)" does not imply all of "Antique Greece" felt this way. Only that some people did.
    - senderista 2y ago
      Who?
      - MisterTea 2y ago
        Ask the GP. I was just clarifying the misunderstanding. However, an extremely cursory search turns up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece#Views_of_Greek_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece#View... where it is mentioned that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcidamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcidamas is one such person. Though it seems that slavery in ancient Greece was normalized and deeply intertwined within their society. I am sure there were critics but like everything unpopular, may have been discarded or suppressed.
        mr_toad 2y ago
        I think the question of whether any ancient society was (as a whole) opposed to slavery is a valid one.
- foxyv 2y ago
  Just a quick reminder, slavery is still common in the United States.
  - kjs3 2y ago
    Just a quick reminder, 1/3 of 1% is not 'common'. Unless you (predictably) redefine math and English so you get to be right. https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/united-states/ https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studie... https://ourrescue.org/education/research-and-trends/modern-day-slavery https://ourrescue.org/education/research-and-trends/modern-d...
    - foxyv 2y ago
      Only 7 of 50 states ban forced labor. Seems pretty common to me.
    - samplatt 2y ago
      3.3 people per thousand is pretty common for something that isn't meant to exist at all. I could meet 1000 people and, due to the ostensibly advanced & cultured world we live in, I would be confident none of them should be slaves. Being so inflexible with the definition is not the same as being honest. Astrophysicists and statisticians often use the word 'common' to refer to vanishingly small numbers, and us uneducated laypeople are usually just fine with that.
      - kjs3 2y ago
        Being so inflexible with the definition is not the same as being honest. If I said "AB negative blood is common" or "Australians are common", most people wouldn't say I was being 'inflexible' if I said "only 1/3 of 1% isn't that common" and uneducated laypeople (and Australians) are usually just fine with that, too. But it's a hot button topic and the OP want's to derail the thread to it's pet peeve, and there's always someone who wants to pipe up with "I don't like your facts so I'll attack your intent".
        2y ago
mullingitover 2y ago
This is a fascinating paper with a lot of interesting context, the mid-1900s were a different time for medical ethics. I grew up in the Adventist church and it's been wild seeing it drift so far from its original distinguishing stances. When I was a kid, I primarily went to Adventist schools. However, one year after my family moved there wasn't an Adventist school available. I went to a local evangelical school instead. It was a real eye-opener. The evangelical school had a program of outright child brain-washing about abortion that I'd never heard as an Adventist. As a fifth grader I was getting daily updates about the Supreme Court nomination battle over (disgaced Nixon lackey) Robert Bork, because as early as the eighties court packing was a core strategy for anti-choice movement. There was daily news about abortion protests they were running. When I went home and asked my parents about it, they told me as Adventists we had the bible's stance on abortion: the bible says nothing about abortion. Adventists hospitals even allowed abortions to be performed on prem since they had no doctrinal problem with it. Fast forward to now, a lot of Adventist members are loudly anti-choice, anti-vaccine (the church leadership had to post a very delicately worded statement about vaccines because they operate respectable medical schools, and had to please both the many facebook-addled cranks in their pews as well as the sane professionals in their medical school staff), generally indistinguishable from generic right-wing evangelicals. The Adventist core membership of today I have no doubt would've been mostly pro-slavery and definitely would have no qualms about shooting people in war. The paper talks about the church's effort to go from 'sect' (firm moral stances putting them at odds with the majority) to 'denomination' (compromising their morals to fit in), and the church of today I'd say has run as far away as they could from being a sect.
- chinathrow 2y ago
  Boy am I glad I went to a state school without this crap.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    The ideological games being pushed on children in state schools is different, but it's not entirely absent. That being said, I'll take historical revisionism over the history of the empire over, uh, the evangelical option.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
1oooqooq 2y ago
[flagged]
CalRobert 2y ago
If 39 pages is too much for you, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat#Seventh-day_Adventists_and_Operation_Whitecoat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat#Seventh-da... """ Over the course of the 19-year program, more than 2,300 U.S. Army soldiers, many of whom were trained medics, contributed to the Whitecoat experiments by allowing themselves to be infected with numerous different kinds of bacteria that were considered likely choices for a biological attack. While some volunteered immediately after basic training, for conscientious objectors at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas (before they began their medic training), the near certainty of being assigned as a combat medic in Vietnam helped some medics choose instead to remain in the United States with the Whitecoat program. The goal of the program was to determine dose response for these agents. """ I attended an SDA high school and was a member of the church for a couple years in college (I dated an SDA woman). It was interesting that they had a ton of dentists, doctors, etc. and ran well-regarded medical schools, but also espoused young Earth creationism. They also were generally suspicious of government involvement in religion, with many worried about a "national Sunday law" and being disallowed from worshipping on Saturday. Conversely, this generally included a desire for religion not to get too involved in government, which I respected quite a lot. I never really believed, and left the church after breaking up, but I really miss the sense of community. Every Saturday I'd go to a service with a boring sermon but some _fantastic_ singing (the entire congregation could, and did, sing, and those walls rang with "Down By The River To Pray" in 4 part harmony), then have a vegetarian (albeit cheesy) potluck after, and then just chill at the beach with friends. Society would do well to adopt the sabbath as a cultural practice. The minister where I was seemed pretty chill with marriage equality - I remember he gave a sermon about marriage while people protested California's prop 8 outside and he pointed out how badly LGBT couple wanted marriage at the same time others took it for granted. I wonder if it's still like that.
- dataviz1000 2y ago
  > California Adventists have higher life expectancies at the age of 30 years than other white Californians by 7.28 years (95% confidence interval, 6.59-7.97 years) in men and by 4.42 years (95% confidence interval, 3.96-4.88 years) in women, giving them perhaps the highest life expectancy of any formally described population. [0] SDA live a lot longer. The SDA vegetarian diet was also the driving force behind the Kellogg's Cereal company [1] [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/648593 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Keith_Kellogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Keith_Kellogg

107 points by smegger001 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

It's funny; unethical human experimentation during that period is often excused as "it was common practice at the time" (to "forget" to consult patients before enrolling them into experiments), and here we have people of the same period making sure to follow proper ethical procedures... (The same way that even at the time slavery was common - be it XIXth century or Antique Greece - there were already quite a lot of people revulsed by it...)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sofixa 2y ago
For what it's worth, enrolling patients without consent in unnecessary procedures still happens today. There's even a whole Wiki article about one category of those (which was banned in France in 2016, and US in 2024, but probably remains legal and pervasive in a lot of other countries): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_examinations_under_anesthesia_by_medical_students_without_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_examinations_under_anes...
- thimkerbell 2y ago
  Isn't experimentation.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    I'm sure the patients are comforted by the difference.
    - rendaw 2y ago
      I think GP's point is that calling it experimentation euphemizes it.
- tdeck 2y ago
  Unbelievable that this was and is a thing and that I've never heard of it before.
themaninthedark 2y ago
Which Antique Greece was revulsed by slavery? It wasn't the democracy of Athens... >Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
- MisterTea 2y ago
  "there were already quite a lot of people revulsed by it...)" does not imply all of "Antique Greece" felt this way. Only that some people did.
  - senderista 2y ago
    Who?
    - MisterTea 2y ago
      Ask the GP. I was just clarifying the misunderstanding. However, an extremely cursory search turns up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece#Views_of_Greek_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece#View... where it is mentioned that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcidamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcidamas is one such person. Though it seems that slavery in ancient Greece was normalized and deeply intertwined within their society. I am sure there were critics but like everything unpopular, may have been discarded or suppressed.
      - mr_toad 2y ago
        I think the question of whether any ancient society was (as a whole) opposed to slavery is a valid one.
foxyv 2y ago
Just a quick reminder, slavery is still common in the United States.
- kjs3 2y ago
  Just a quick reminder, 1/3 of 1% is not 'common'. Unless you (predictably) redefine math and English so you get to be right. https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/united-states/ https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studie... https://ourrescue.org/education/research-and-trends/modern-day-slavery https://ourrescue.org/education/research-and-trends/modern-d...
  - foxyv 2y ago
    Only 7 of 50 states ban forced labor. Seems pretty common to me.
  - samplatt 2y ago
    3.3 people per thousand is pretty common for something that isn't meant to exist at all. I could meet 1000 people and, due to the ostensibly advanced & cultured world we live in, I would be confident none of them should be slaves. Being so inflexible with the definition is not the same as being honest. Astrophysicists and statisticians often use the word 'common' to refer to vanishingly small numbers, and us uneducated laypeople are usually just fine with that.
    - kjs3 2y ago
      Being so inflexible with the definition is not the same as being honest. If I said "AB negative blood is common" or "Australians are common", most people wouldn't say I was being 'inflexible' if I said "only 1/3 of 1% isn't that common" and uneducated laypeople (and Australians) are usually just fine with that, too. But it's a hot button topic and the OP want's to derail the thread to it's pet peeve, and there's always someone who wants to pipe up with "I don't like your facts so I'll attack your intent".
      - 2y ago

mullingitover 2y ago

This is a fascinating paper with a lot of interesting context, the mid-1900s were a different time for medical ethics. I grew up in the Adventist church and it's been wild seeing it drift so far from its original distinguishing stances. When I was a kid, I primarily went to Adventist schools. However, one year after my family moved there wasn't an Adventist school available. I went to a local evangelical school instead. It was a real eye-opener. The evangelical school had a program of outright child brain-washing about abortion that I'd never heard as an Adventist. As a fifth grader I was getting daily updates about the Supreme Court nomination battle over (disgaced Nixon lackey) Robert Bork, because as early as the eighties court packing was a core strategy for anti-choice movement. There was daily news about abortion protests they were running. When I went home and asked my parents about it, they told me as Adventists we had the bible's stance on abortion: the bible says nothing about abortion. Adventists hospitals even allowed abortions to be performed on prem since they had no doctrinal problem with it. Fast forward to now, a lot of Adventist members are loudly anti-choice, anti-vaccine (the church leadership had to post a very delicately worded statement about vaccines because they operate respectable medical schools, and had to please both the many facebook-addled cranks in their pews as well as the sane professionals in their medical school staff), generally indistinguishable from generic right-wing evangelicals. The Adventist core membership of today I have no doubt would've been mostly pro-slavery and definitely would have no qualms about shooting people in war. The paper talks about the church's effort to go from 'sect' (firm moral stances putting them at odds with the majority) to 'denomination' (compromising their morals to fit in), and the church of today I'd say has run as far away as they could from being a sect.

chinathrow 2y ago
Boy am I glad I went to a state school without this crap.
- skyyler 2y ago
  The ideological games being pushed on children in state schools is different, but it's not entirely absent. That being said, I'll take historical revisionism over the history of the empire over, uh, the evangelical option.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

1oooqooq 2y ago

[flagged]

CalRobert 2y ago

If 39 pages is too much for you, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat#Seventh-day_Adventists_and_Operation_Whitecoat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Whitecoat#Seventh-da... """ Over the course of the 19-year program, more than 2,300 U.S. Army soldiers, many of whom were trained medics, contributed to the Whitecoat experiments by allowing themselves to be infected with numerous different kinds of bacteria that were considered likely choices for a biological attack. While some volunteered immediately after basic training, for conscientious objectors at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas (before they began their medic training), the near certainty of being assigned as a combat medic in Vietnam helped some medics choose instead to remain in the United States with the Whitecoat program. The goal of the program was to determine dose response for these agents. """ I attended an SDA high school and was a member of the church for a couple years in college (I dated an SDA woman). It was interesting that they had a ton of dentists, doctors, etc. and ran well-regarded medical schools, but also espoused young Earth creationism. They also were generally suspicious of government involvement in religion, with many worried about a "national Sunday law" and being disallowed from worshipping on Saturday. Conversely, this generally included a desire for religion not to get too involved in government, which I respected quite a lot. I never really believed, and left the church after breaking up, but I really miss the sense of community. Every Saturday I'd go to a service with a boring sermon but some _fantastic_ singing (the entire congregation could, and did, sing, and those walls rang with "Down By The River To Pray" in 4 part harmony), then have a vegetarian (albeit cheesy) potluck after, and then just chill at the beach with friends. Society would do well to adopt the sabbath as a cultural practice. The minister where I was seemed pretty chill with marriage equality - I remember he gave a sermon about marriage while people protested California's prop 8 outside and he pointed out how badly LGBT couple wanted marriage at the same time others took it for granted. I wonder if it's still like that.

dataviz1000 2y ago
> California Adventists have higher life expectancies at the age of 30 years than other white Californians by 7.28 years (95% confidence interval, 6.59-7.97 years) in men and by 4.42 years (95% confidence interval, 3.96-4.88 years) in women, giving them perhaps the highest life expectancy of any formally described population. [0] SDA live a lot longer. The SDA vegetarian diet was also the driving force behind the Kellogg's Cereal company [1] [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/648593 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Keith_Kellogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Keith_Kellogg