Just for the Record...

   The abusive testing of mental patients in Guatemala in the 1950's was a horrible experiment and abuse of human beings. However, for the record we were doing the same to our own and all so called modern nations attempted the same thing. One also make the case the Eugenics is still at the heart of these abuses and the abortion folks are still at it in various forms. Embryonic testing is but another insane example of the types of abuses that go on today under the guide of research.

Willowbrook

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Construction and early conversion

In 1938, plans were drawn up to build a facility for mentally disabled children on a 375 acres (1.52 km²) site in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. Construction was completed in 1942, but instead of opening for its original purpose, it was converted into a United States Army hospital and named Halloran General Hospital, after the late Colonel Paul Stacey Halloran. After World War II, proposals were introduced to turn the site over to the Veterans Administration, but in October 1947, the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene opened its facility there as originally planned, and the institution was named Willowbrook State School.

[edit] Hepatitis studies

Throughout the first decade of its operation, outbreaks of hepatitis were common at the school. Virtually all children developed hepatitis within six months, primarily hepatitis A. This led to a highly controversial medical study carried out there between the mid-1950s up to the 1970s by medical researchers Saul Krugman and Robert W. McCollum. Healthy children were intentionally inoculated, orally and by injection, with the virus that causes the disease, then monitored to gauge the effects of gamma globulin in combating it.^[3] A public outcry forced the study to be discontinued.

[edit] More scandals and abuses

By 1965, Willowbrook housed over 6,000 mentally disabled children, despite having a maximum capacity of 4,000. Senator Robert Kennedy toured the institution in 1965 and proclaimed that individuals in the overcrowded facility were "living in filth and dirt, their clothing in rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo" and offered a series of recommendations for improving conditions.^[4] Although the hepatitis study had been discontinued, the residential school's reputation was that of a warehouse for New York City's mentally disabled children, many of whom were presumably abandoned there by their families, foster care agencies or other systems designed to care for them. Donna J. Stone, an advocate for mentally disabled children as well as victims of child abuse, gained access to the school by posing as a recent social work graduate. She then shared her observations with members of the press.^[5]
A series of articles in local newspapers, including the Staten Island Advance and the Staten Island Register, described the crowded, filthy living conditions at Willowbrook, and the negligent treatment of some of its residents. Shortly thereafter, in early 1972, Geraldo Rivera, then an investigative reporter for WABC-TV in New York, conducted a series of investigations at Willowbrook uncovering a host of deplorable conditions, including overcrowding, inadequate sanitary facilities, and physical and sexual abuse of residents by members of the school's staff. The exposé, entitled Willowbrook: The Last Disgrace, garnered national attention and won a Peabody Award for Rivera.^[6] Rivera later appeared on the nationally televised Dick Cavett Show with film of patients at the school.
As a result of the overcrowding, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the State of New York in federal court on March 17, 1972. A settlement in the case was reached on May 5, 1975, mandating reforms at the site, but several years would pass before all of the violations were corrected. The publicity generated by the case was a major contributing factor to the passage of a federal law, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980."