Human Experimentation in the U.S.

The 'Human Experimentation in the United States' Wikipedia article (25 printed pages as of 07/12/2010) details numerous unethical experiments performed on nonconsenting subjects in the United States.  "Many of these experiments were funded by the United States government, especially the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States military."  The libertarian bioethicist obviously opposes human experimentation on nonconsenting subjects by any organization, but particularly repudiates the involvement of criminal gangs (i.e. governments) in such medical acts of aggression.

The article provides information on the following types of human experimentation in the U.S.: biological, radiation, chemical, psychological, torture, surgical, and pharmacological.  The minutiae of the experiments is shocking even to a libertarian.  I highly recommend this account of medical aggression.

I list below six of the many U.S. government human experiments noted in the Wikipedia article:

1. "In 1955, the CIA conducted a biological warfare experiment where they released whooping cough bacteria from boats outside of Tampa Bay, Florida causing a whooping cough epidemic in the city and killing at least 12 people."
2. "In 1953, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) ran several studies on the health effects of radioactive iodine in newborns and pregnant women at the University of Iowa."
3. "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."
4. "In studies running from 1947 to 1953, which were known as Project Chatter, the U.S. Navy began identifying and testing truth serums, which they hoped could be used during interrogations of Soviet spies."
5. "From 1913 to 1951, Dr. Leo Stanley, chief surgeon at the San Quentin Prison, performed a wide variety of experiments on hundreds of prisoners at San Quentin."
6. "In 1942, the Harvard University biochemist Edward Cohn injected 64 Massachusetts prisoners with cow blood, as part of an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Navy."