Dangerous Medicine

The untold history of America’s mid-twentieth-century program of hepatitis infection research, its scientists’ aspirations, and the damage the project caused human subjects

From 1942 through 1972, American biomedical researchers deliberately infected people with hepatitis. Government-sponsored researchers were attempting to discover the basic features of the disease and the viruses causing it, and to develop interventions that would quell recurring outbreaks. Drawing from extensive archival research and in-person interviews, Sydney Halpern traces the hepatitis program from its origins in World War II through its expansion during the initial Cold War years, to its demise in the early 1970s amid an outcry over research abuse.

The subjects in hepatitis studies were members of stigmatized groups—conscientious objectors, prison inmates, the mentally ill, and developmentally disabled adults and children. The book reveals how researchers invoked military and scientific imperatives and the rhetoric of a common good to win support for the experiments and access to recruits. Halpern examines the participants’ long-term health consequences and raises troubling questions about hazardous human experiments aimed at controlling today’s epidemic diseases.