Allen M. Hornblum - Sentenced to Science: One Black Mans Story of Imprisonment in America

Sentenced to Science

Sentenced to Science

One Black Mans Story of Imprisonment in America

Allen M. Hornblum

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hornblum, Allen M.

Sentenced to Science : one black mans story of imprisonment in America / Allen M. Hornblum

P. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-271-03336-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Human experimentation in medicinePennsylvaniaPhiladelphia.

2. Anthony, Edward, 1943.

3. PrisonersPennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaAnecdotes.

4. Holmesburg Prison.

I. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Anthony, Edward, 1943.
2. Holmesburg Prison.
3. Human ExperimentationPhiladelphiaPersonal Narratives.
4. African AmericansPhiladelphiaPersonal Narratives.
5. PrisonersPhiladelphiaPersonal Narratives.
6. PrisonsPhiladelphia. W 20.55.H9 H814s 2007]

R853.H8H67 2007

615.5072'40974811dc22 2007017451

Copyright 2007

The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America
Published by
The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press
is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.481992.

To those physicians and researchers who
chose not to use vulnerable,
institutionalized populations as test subjects
for their experiments.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The publication of Acres of Skin during the summer of 1998 attracted remarkable media interest, both here and abroad. The television, radio, and newsprint coverage not only helped illuminate a dark chapter in American medical history but also signaled a clarion call for former Holmesburg Prison test subjectsat long last they would learn the truth about the strange medical experiments in which they had once participated.

Dozens, then scores, of former Holmesburg prisoners began showing up at various neighborhood meetings. Renewing old acquaintances and making new ones, the men and womenmostly African American and in their sixties and seventies nowhad two things in common: they had once been incarcerated in the Philadelphia prison system, and they had been used as research material for a dizzying assortment of medical experiments. While some were embarrassed by their history as caged guinea pigs and remained silent, others were morally outraged and emotionally recounted their experiences. More than a few expressed their lasting enmity for those who had used them in such a cavalier fashion.

Over the years I would bring a number of these men and women into my classes at Temple University. Students, in most cases learning for the first time about similar episodes of unethical medical research at places such as Tuskegee, Fernald, and Willowbrook, were normally stunned by the former inmate/test subjects stories. One of the most compelling presenters was Edward Anthony. Though shy and cognizant of his modest public speaking abilities, Anthonys honest, unembellished account of his days as an imprisoned test subject held listeners undivided attention. Facial expressions denoting shock and revulsion became commonplace; it was clear students were not listening to an ordinary guest lecturer.

Gradually, I recognized that Edward Anthonys powerful testimony of life as a test subject was worthy of a larger audience than my few Urban Society classes. For his many years of recounting his story in my own classes, our trips to other college campuses, and for his participation in this book project, I would like to offer him my sincere appreciation.

I would also like to thank Drs. Ackerman, Franzblau, and Egilman for being such fine medical role models and for ceaselessly trumpeting the importance of ethics in medicine.

The process of converting a manuscript to a prominent place on bookstore shelves is a team exercise. I am fortunate to have had the assistance of a very fine team. Sandy Thatcher, director of Penn State University Press, quickly recognized the historical importance of Eddie Anthonys story. I would like to thank the cadre of book lovers at the Press in editorial and design for their work.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my relentless and indefatigable copy-editor. Suzanne Wolk endured my syntactical blunders, tired prose, and frenetic schedule, because she, too, recognized the importance of Ed Anthonys story.

I would also like to thank Temples Urban Archives for their assistance with Holmesburg photographs, and Louis Edinger and George Holmes for their important contribution to this book.

One of the nicest [American] scientists I know was heard to say, Criminals in our penitentiaries are fine experimental materialand much cheaper than chimpanzees.

Pertinax, British Medical Journal, January 1963

In 1998, Allen Hornblum published Acres of Skin, which powerfully documented the wide spectrum of abusive medical experimentation conducted at Philadelphias Holmesburg Prison complex by Dr. Albert M. Kligman between the 1950s and 1970s. By drawing back the veil obscuring the medical abuse of captive men, Allen has done a great service not only to the abused subjects but also to all Americans by allowing them to witness the questionable milieu in which prison experimentation has been conducted.

Seventy-five percent of Holmesburgs inmate population, including Edward Butch Anthony, the subject of this book, were administered cosmetics, powders, and shampoos that caused many of them baldness, extensive scarring, and permanent skin and nail injury. Fingernails were removed or deformed and the subjects backs were covered in checkerboard patterns of flayed, discolored, and scarred skin. Jailed subjects were also inoculated with herpes, vaccinia, and wart viruses. Dow Chemical Company also paid Kligman to test the suspected carcinogen dioxin, on seventy prisoners, mostly black. Most of this research was practiced upon African American men, revealed Hornblum. It was not uncommon for them to be used for the worst, most dangerous experiments.

Kligman, a dermatologist, was initially invited to Holmesburg Prison in 1951 to treat an outbreak of athletes foot. But his initial reaction to Holmesburg was far from therapeutic and gave Hornblums book its title: All I saw before me were acres of skin. It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time. Soon Kligman was inducing foot fungus, instead of treating it, because he saw the opportunity to conduct lucrative experiments upon thousands of captive bodies for at least thirty-three major pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Helena Rubenstein, and DuPont.

During World War II, prisoners had been commonly used as research subjects and, after the war, the United States was the only nation in the world continuing to legally use prisoners in clinical trials. This corporate capital catalyzed a thirty-year boom in research with prisoners, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s Kligman gained exclusive experimental use of inmate bodies, testing 153 experimental drugs between 1962 and 1966 alone.