The Dark Secret of the MIT Science Club for Children

On a winter morning in 1994, Massachusetts resident Fred Boyce turned on his car radio, and was shocked by what he heard. A federal committee had just revealed that 50 years earlier, a group of children at Fernald State School—an institution for the developmentally disabled—had been unwittingly fed radioactive cereal by MIT researchers.

The Dark Secret of the MIT Science Club for Children ScreenShot2015-02-26at12.30.39PM

The Dark Secret of the MIT Science Club for Children ScreenShot2015-02-26at12.30.39PM

“That can’t be right!” he yelled. “That’s me!”

In the late 1940s, Boyce was one of some 90 children, most of whom were classified as “feeble-minded,” selected by MIT to be used as test subjects. With offers of free meals and Boston Red Sox tickets, they’d been coaxed to join a “Science Club” without knowing that their inclusion would make them guinea pigs for various radiation-laden nutrition studies funded by Quaker Oats.

It wasn’t until decades later, on that winter morning in 1994, that Boyce became aware of what he’d been secretly put through. It incited one of history’s most searing debates about the ethics of academic research and the necessity of informed consent.

http://priceonomics.com/the-mit-science-club-for-disabled-children/

The Dark Secret of the MIT Science Club for Children

The Dark Secret of the MIT Science Club for Children

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