HEPATITIS HORRORS IN WILLOWBROOK STATE SCHOOL
This newspaper cites a specific encounter when a journalist, Jane Kurtin, went to uncover the truth about the experimentation occurring at this school. It was noted when the newspaper was released, that the children were intentionally being injected with Hepatitis to find a cure for the outbreak of hepatitis during that time. Jane Kurtin revealed that children were locked behind doors, were able to walk around without the supervision of nurses as there was one nurse per 50 children, and children were left to play in their own feces. As this news report was released by Jane Kurtin in 1972, many file class- action law suits started occurring due to the State school violating constitutional rights.
One of the main physicians over the Willowbrook State School experimentation, Saul Krugman, introduced specific aspects of how the Willowbrook medical experimentation was ethical in the eyes of the physicians, mainly with the idea of which was to find a cure for hepatitis. Saul Krugman discussed the pandemic at length identifying major concepts and beliefs held by physicians that they believed made this research experimentation ethical. Most physicians reported during that time that most children were continuously being exposed to hepatitis in Willowbrook State School and would eventually get the disease from mere exposure. This response was reported as a justification for the purpose and ethical aspects behind the experiment.
The physicians that were conducting the experiment noted that they would abandon morals if their research benefits the human population as a whole. This idea is projected throughout the experimentation as the conditions that the children lived in were unbearable and the mere thought of injecting hepatitis into children was unethical.
Reflection on the medical experimentation at Willowbrook revealed many aspects of future ethical implications that could be employed. Examination of the specific contributions and ethical limitation this study supplies is necessary in attempt to fully investigate the ethical aspects such as “Respects for Persons” and “Unfair Aspects.”
When making a reference for “respects for persons,” a main aspect is the ability of these mentally ill children being able to fully understand the limits of the study and what they are participating in, as well as the fact of intentionally injecting a live virus into someone as a means of medical experimentation; neither of these factors have respect for persons.
In the latter “Unfair Aspects,” there were specific ethical standpoints stating that instead of injecting more children with hepatitis, it should have been the objective of the researchers to find a cure for the disease instead of spread it out.
Sources:
Weiser, Benjamin. “Beatings, Burns and Betrayal: The Willowbrook Scandal's Legacy.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 21, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/nyregion/willowbrook-state-school-staten-island.html.
Dalton, Kristin F. “The Horrors of Willowbrook State School.” silive, February
24, 2020. https://www.silive.com/news/2017/01/the_horrors_of_willowbrook_sta.html
Krugman, S. “The Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies Revisited: Ethical Aspects.”
Reviews of infectious diseases. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1986. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3952423.
Willowbrook Hepatitis Experiments.” Education Development Center,
Inc. Exploring Bioethics. 2009. Retrieved from
https://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/webversions/bioethics/guid
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