Dr. Walter Paul Havens - Hepatitis
Dr. Walter Paul Havens Jr. conducted extensive studies of viral hepatitis - a disease spread through bodily fluids and matter, from being born to an infected mother, or a bad blood or liver transplant, and which can lead to secondary infections and eventual fatality due to liver failure complications (Connecticut Post, 2011) .
Dr. Havens intentionally Infected mental patients in Middletown and Norwich, Connecticut with hepatitis. In federally funded studies during the 1940s, he - a noted Yale University researcher - exposed men to hepatitis through a series of experiments, including one using patients from mental institutions where 8 patients became ill with infectious hepatitis.
Havens was highly concerned with curing viral hepatitis due to its infection rates between troops during WWI and WWII, and in the period between 1941 and 1944 where cases were in the tens of thousands. He had hoped to find a cure for it, but instead found nothing new through his experimentation - however, this would not prevent future experiments involving viral hepatitis.
Patients weren’t informed of what was going to happen to them due to their status as asylum patients and the common treatment towards them during this time period.
Due to the chronic nature of viral hepatitis - making it a lifetime condition with symptoms such as fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, joint pain, and jaundice - on top of whatever issues landed them an asylum stay which could’ve been any number of physical or mental conditions of varying severity, could’ve worsened their preexisting condition beyond full recovery.
Sources:
Alliance for Human Research Protection. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://ahrp.org/horrific-us-medical-experiments-come-to-light/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, March 9). What is viral hepatitis? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/abc/index.htm
Clipping from the Boston Globe. Newspapers.com. (1992, April 8). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.newspapers.com/clip/37789528/the-boston-globe/
College, T. J. M. (n.d.). Infectious hepatitis : Medicine. LWW. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Citation/1948/09000/INFECTIOUS_HEPATITIS.2.aspx.
Person. (2011, March 1). Report: Yale professor intentionally gave patients hepatitis in 1940s study. Connecticut Post. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Report-Yale-professor-intentionally-gave-1034286.php.
Smithsonian Institution. “Recombivax HB, Hepatitis B Vaccine (Recombinant) Adult Formula, 3 ML.” Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/object/recombivax-hb-hepatitis-b-vaccine-recombinant-adult-formula-3-ml%3Anmah_1000964.