The 6 most sinister experiments on humans in the U.S.

Several immoral studies that went against any ethical principle.

Under the misleading promise of scientific progress, some organizations can go so far as to conduct illegal experiments that clearly violate the health and integrity of human beings. and integrity of the human being.

Sometimes it is good to remember that science is not beyond economic and political interests and that human rights are not always a factor to be respected by certain authorities.

When experiments become cruel

Experiments on suffering animals are not the only way in which research can take on macabre overtones. When the pressure to stay afloat as one of the world's leading powers is added to the scientific progress that can be made through them, the result can be humane experiments that are as brutal as they are morally reprehensible.

These are some of the worst experiments carried out in the name of science in the U.S..

1. Project MK Ultra

People who follow the Stranger Things series will be familiar with the term MK Ultrabut the truth is that it was a project that came to exist beyond fiction. It is a set of experiments initiated during the 1950s and coordinated and promoted by the CIA. Its function was to explore the possibilities of creating forms of mind control that could be applied during torture sessions.

To investigate ways in which people could be forced to confess information, they were injured, given drugs or kept in isolation. Many of these people participated in these experiments without being consciously aware of itThey believed that they were simply undergoing medical treatment to mitigate the effects of mental disorders or illnesses they suffered from.

The objective of this secret research, led by an American physician named John Cutlerwas to study the effects of penicillin in the possible prevention of venereal disease. To this end, dozens of people were infected with syphilis. dozens of people from the lowest socioeconomic strata were infected with syphilis, and at least 83 of them died.at least 83 of them died. These investigations began to come to light in 2005, when a university professor found documents on the subject.

2. Holmesburg program and experimentation with agent orange

Agent Orange, a chemical warfare element widely used by the US during its invasion of Vietnam, was also used in illegal experiments.

During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a doctor named Albert M. Kligman conducted, on behalf of the US Navy and several private companies, an experiment in which he used 70 prisoners from a Philadelphia jail. The research was to study how the skin reacts when someone is inoculated with dioxin, one of the components of Agent Orange. These people developed serious skin lesions that were left untreated for months..

• You can see a spectacular photographic report of the Holmesbur Program in this Daily Mail article.

3. Tests with the truth serum

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the U.S. military promoted a series of psychological experiments based on the use of drugs known as truth serums.. As the name suggests, these substances were perceived as a potential tool to make people confess confidential information without being able to avoid it.

The use of these drugs not only used to have devastating effects on the mental health of the people with whom they were experimented, but in many cases created an addiction to them.

4. Experiments with radiation

During the 1960s, the Pentagon developed experiments based on subjecting low-income Cancer patients to intense radiation.. During these sessions, radiation levels were so high that patients suffered intense pain and experienced nausea and other symptoms.

5. Syphilis experiments in Guatemala

In the mid-20th century, much of Latin America was still a region under the direct domination of the US and its intelligence services, which controlled local governments and suppressed popular revolts by financing paramilitaries.

This dominance was also expressed through experimentation in one of the most notorious cases of illegal experimentation: the infection of people living in Guatemala with venereal diseases during the 1940s..

• If you want to know more about this terrible case, we recommend this BBC report.

6. Mustard gas resistance tests

In the 1940s, thousands of U.S. soldiers were exposed to mustard gas to test equipment for chemical warfare protection.. The soldiers were not informed of the risks of these tests, and many of them ended up with serious skin burns and lung injuries after being locked in gas chamber-like rooms.