It was in my research of my fellow Puerto Rican, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, that I came upon information regarding medical experimentation illegally performed on Puerto Ricans. I had heard before of the Puerto Rican Pill Trials (a human trial study of contraception pills done on Puerto Rican women); but forced sterilizations, injecting live cancer cells in unwitting patients and exposing prisoners to radiation, exceeded my previous knowledge of the situation.
My previous post, dated June 2, 2011, covered and exposed the use of radiation poisoning to inmates, one of its victim being Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos. So, other than this mention, nothing else will be added regarding that atrocity in this post.
In 1932, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos wrote a manuscript in which he accused Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of killing Puerto Rican patients as part of the medical experiments conducted in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital for the Rockefeller Institute. His proof was a third party letter in which Dr. Rhoads admits to injecting live cancer cells in patients. The letter also included inflammatory racists comments denigrating Puerto Ricans for their alleged bad character. Investigations at the time did not publicly reveal evidence of malicious activity to support the claim and Dr. Rhoads was vindicated while Albizu Campos was discredited. Wikipedia
In 1932, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos wrote a manuscript in which he accused Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of killing Puerto Rican patients as part of the medical experiments conducted in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital for the Rockefeller Institute. His proof was a third party letter in which Dr. Rhoads admits to injecting live cancer cells in patients. The letter also included inflammatory racists comments denigrating Puerto Ricans for their alleged bad character. Investigations at the time did not publicly reveal evidence of malicious activity to support the claim and Dr. Rhoads was vindicated while Albizu Campos was discredited. Wikipedia
Years later, in 2003, after an independent investigation led by the eminent bio ethicist Dr. Jay Katz, of Yale University, the American Association for Cancer Research removed Dr. Rhoad's name from their annual award intended for an "individual on the basis of meritorious achievement in cancer research." Although, no formal apology was exercised, none was truly required. I personally applaud the AACR.
This was by no means the only human study that was to be conducted in Puerto Rico.
In the 1950s, an oral contraceptive was being developed in Boston, MA. The preliminary Boston Trials had given the team of John Rock and Gregory Pincus the confidence they needed to pursue a more lucrative endeavor in the marketing of such a product. But without large scale human trials, Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval would never be given and marketability would be nil.
Just so happens that in the summer of 1955, Pincus visited Puerto Rico and found the perfect location.
Puerto Rico was a U.S. Territory, densely populated, officials supported birth control as a form of population control, no anti-birth control laws and Pincus was impressed with the vast networks of birth control clinics already in place.
Another aspect that he found appealing was that if Pincus could show that the poor, uneducated women of Puerto Rico could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too. Pincus hoped to quiet critics' concerns that "oral" contraceptives would be too "complicated" for women in developing nations and American inner cities to use.
The barrio of Rio Piedras saw the first trials in April, 1956. At the time, most women relied on sterilization or abortion to limit their family size, the Pill was a welcomed alternative.
The pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle provided the pills for the trial. Rock selected a high dose of Enovid, the company's brand name for their synthetic oral progesterone to ensure no pregnancies would occur while test subjects were on the drug. Later, after discovering Enovid worked better with small amounts of synthetic estrogen, that active ingredient was added to the Pill as well. (As a side note, the dosage first used by the Rock Pinus team has been reduced drastically to conform to medically accepted dosage for these drugs. To administer that amount today would be deemed criminal.)
Rock and Pincus dismissed reports of serious side affects. Three women died during the trials, but no autopsy or investigations were preformed to exclude the Pill as the cause of these young women's deaths. In later years, the Pincus team would be accused of deceit, colonialism and the exploitation of poor women of color.
This was by no means the only human study that was to be conducted in Puerto Rico.
In the 1950s, an oral contraceptive was being developed in Boston, MA. The preliminary Boston Trials had given the team of John Rock and Gregory Pincus the confidence they needed to pursue a more lucrative endeavor in the marketing of such a product. But without large scale human trials, Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval would never be given and marketability would be nil.
Just so happens that in the summer of 1955, Pincus visited Puerto Rico and found the perfect location.
Puerto Rico was a U.S. Territory, densely populated, officials supported birth control as a form of population control, no anti-birth control laws and Pincus was impressed with the vast networks of birth control clinics already in place.
Another aspect that he found appealing was that if Pincus could show that the poor, uneducated women of Puerto Rico could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too. Pincus hoped to quiet critics' concerns that "oral" contraceptives would be too "complicated" for women in developing nations and American inner cities to use.
The barrio of Rio Piedras saw the first trials in April, 1956. At the time, most women relied on sterilization or abortion to limit their family size, the Pill was a welcomed alternative.
The pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle provided the pills for the trial. Rock selected a high dose of Enovid, the company's brand name for their synthetic oral progesterone to ensure no pregnancies would occur while test subjects were on the drug. Later, after discovering Enovid worked better with small amounts of synthetic estrogen, that active ingredient was added to the Pill as well. (As a side note, the dosage first used by the Rock Pinus team has been reduced drastically to conform to medically accepted dosage for these drugs. To administer that amount today would be deemed criminal.)
Rock and Pincus dismissed reports of serious side affects. Three women died during the trials, but no autopsy or investigations were preformed to exclude the Pill as the cause of these young women's deaths. In later years, the Pincus team would be accused of deceit, colonialism and the exploitation of poor women of color.
The women had only been told that they were taking a drug that prevented pregnancy, not that it was a clinical trial, that the Pill was experimental or that there was a chance of potentially dangerous side effects.
In the 1950s, research involving human subjects was much less regulated than it is today. Pincus and Rock believed that they were following the appropriate ethical standards of the time.
Another disturbing procedure Puerto Ricans were compelled to endure was that of forced sterilization. Below is a paragraph from STERILIZATION OF PUERTO RICAN WOMEN: By Florita Z. Louis de Malave, May 1999; which, in my view, encompasses and brings to light, the plight of human experimentation on the island.
[The colonial legacy of controlling women's sexuality and reproduction continues to prevail with such policies as the testing of the I.U.D., birth control pills and the sterilization of women. In the case of sterilization, the subject of this bibliography, between the 1930s and the 1970s approximately one-third of Puerto Rico's female population of childbearing age had undergone the operation, the highest rate in the world. So common was the practice that the words "sterilization" and "la operacion" (the operation) were used interchangeably. The massive sterilization of Puerto Rican females warrants that their experience be brought to the forefront, and there's the hope that this bibliography will stimulates interest and further research in the subject.]
This subject is of personal significance to me, in that, I was robbed of knowing my maternal grandmother, Tomasa Martinez Rodriguez, due to complications after a sterilization operation. She died in 1942, when my mother, Antonia Rivera Martinez, was only 7 years old.
I urge you to look up the subject of forced sterilization in Puerto Rico; on the internet.
I firmly believe that political, racial, social economic and colonial views are much to blame for the abuses of human experimentation implemented in Puerto Rico. I doubt very much that such lack of concern for humanity would have been perpetuated on Americans of a lighter complexion; Americans that live in one of the established fifty states; or Americans that can vote unscrupulous politicians bought by pharmaceutical companies and unethical medical institutions, out of office.
*Another source for this post was: PBS Online Home Programs, The Pill, 1999.
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