U.S. BIOLOGICAL LAB BEHIND BARS IN BILIBID

When the United States took over the Philippines in 1902, the country was teeming with infection and malnutrition. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the effects of this and how to treat it, army doctors, including Dr. Richard P. Strong, conducted a series of experiments in the Philippines. Dr. Richard P. Strong was the director of the Biological Laboratory of the Philippine Bureau of Science. He conducted his experiments on the inmates of Bilibid prison in Manila. At the Bilibid prison hospital, the bubonic plague virus and cholera were introduced into 24 Filipino prisoners. 13 prisoners died from these experiments, nearly half of those experimented on.

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Food was also withheld from 29 prisoners to produce the disease Beriberi which was caused by vitamin B1 deficiencies. Several of these prisoners died, and lucky ones who survived were compensated with cigars and cigarettes. Dr. Strong allegedly had permission from the governor of the Philippines to conduct these experiments, however it was never reported that he gained the consent of the prisoners.

Sources:

Hornblum, Allen M. “‘They're Dropping Like Flies Out Here.’” In Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison: a Story of Abuse and Exploitation in the Name of Medical Science, 76. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Perper, Joshua A., and Stephen J. Cina. “Experiments on Filipino Prisoners.” In When Doctors Kill: Who, Why, and How, 89. New York: Copernicus, 2010.

MALLARI, AARON ABEL T. "The Bilibid Prison as an American Colonial Project in the Philippines." Philippine Sociological Review60 (2012): 182. Accessed April 6, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43486344.

Lewis. Inmates Lining up for Food Rations at Bilibid Prison. 1911.

Dr. Richard P. Strong. PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE PHILIPPINES. U.S. ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OFFICE OF MEDICAL HISTORY , November 1, 2009. https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/spanam/gillet3/ch11.html.