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Hepatitis
[1950s
and 1960s] Willowbrook State School-Dr. Saul Krugman
of New York University
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Human Experiments
Willowbrook State School-Dr. Saul Krugman of New York University conducted studies of hepatitis during the 1950s and 1960s on the severely mentally retarded. He systematically infected newly arrived children between the ages of three and eleven with strains of the virus obtained from the feces of Willowbrook hepatitis patients. This was done to study the natural history, effects, and progression of the disease. Franz Inglefinger, who later became the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said, "By being allowed to participate in a carefully supervised study and by receiving the most expert attention available for a disease of basically unknown nature, the patients themselves benefited . . . How much better to have a patient with hepatitis accidentally or deliberately acquired under the guidance of a Krugman, than under the care of a rights-minded zealot." 2003] Carol Rutz's Lecture at Indiana University