Prepare to be disturbed. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the most horrific experiments done in the name of science.
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00:00At the study's conclusion, only 74 of the original 600 men were still alive.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most horrific experiments done in the name of science.
00:13Mengele was known as the Angel of Death.
00:18He wanted to improve the stock of the Aryan race.
00:23The Aversion Project.
00:25Levine made numerous TV appearances, but in public he said little about his trademark therapy.
00:32Targeting a group of people for something beyond their control is cruel enough.
00:36Subjecting them to torture under the guise of fixing them is even more insidious.
00:41The Aversion Project in South Africa had one goal.
00:44Quote-unquote, curing people of being gay.
00:47For nearly 20 years, countless victims were put through increasingly painful electroshock therapy.
00:53When that didn't work, they moved on to more extreme tactics, like chemical castration and even surgery.
00:59Hundreds were forcibly operated on, with many surgeries left incomplete by the time the project ended in 1989.
01:06The horrific experiment left lasting psychological scars on the victims, many of whom ultimately took their own lives.
01:14In 2014, Aubrey Levine, the man behind the project, was sentenced to five years in prison.
01:20I would almost call him psychopathic. He has no sense of other people's humanity.
01:26He was this person with a huge amount of power, and he did what he wanted with it.
01:32Henrietta Lacks.
01:33While medical breakthroughs benefit many, they sometimes come at the expense of a few, or in this case, just one person.
01:40Henrietta Lacks was only 31 when she passed from cervical cancer, but her cells lived on, without her or her family knowing.
01:49Before she died, two samples were taken without her consent, and it was discovered that her cells were able to survive for long periods.
01:56Because there had been this enormous effort to grow cells outside the body for a hundred years,
02:01because we just really didn't know a lot about cells at that point.
02:04And in response to all of his colleagues asking for them, George Guy sent them to anyone who wanted to use them for research.
02:12And they spread around the world this way really fast.
02:15Since then, scientists have used them to make several important discoveries about cancer.
02:20This, however, led to her family's medical records being leaked and relatives harassed for blood samples.
02:26It wasn't until 2023, over 70 years later, that her family received compensation.
02:32Her family sued multi-billion dollar Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2021,
02:36saying the company, quote, made staggering profits by using the HeLa cell line,
02:41although it, quote, has known that HeLa cells were stolen from Ms. Lacks.
02:44To this day, Lacks' cells, and the ethical debate around using them, still live on.
02:50Feeding Children Radioactive Oatmeal
02:53What hot breakfast is as easy and fast to prepare as Quaker Oats?
02:57Some researchers will go to any length to get the results they need, including targeting vulnerable populations.
03:03Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center was originally established to care for children with developmental disabilities,
03:10but instead, they subjected them to secret tests.
03:13Between 1946 and 1953, the center fed dozens of boys with oatmeal laced with radioactive elements,
03:20in an experiment sponsored by Quaker Oats.
03:23That's why your family gets that wonderful stick-to-the-ribs feeling with Quaker Oats.
03:27That wonderful feeling of well-being.
03:29These children were misled into thinking they were part of a science club,
03:32and were given incentives to encourage their participation.
03:36However, neither them nor their families knew the true extent of the trials.
03:40While the radiation doses were low, the unethical use of children who were already at a disadvantage was condemned,
03:47and the victims finally received justice in 1998.
03:52Chimera
03:53The Cold War may have spurred advancements in various scientific fields,
03:57but some of that research was more insidious in nature.
04:00Prisoners in Soviet gulags were subject to extreme suffering,
04:04with some being sent to Chimera, a lab dedicated to testing poisons.
04:09These were prisoners who had been declared enemies of the people, and so were considered expendable.
04:14Established in 1921, the facility exposed countless victims to various lethal substances,
04:20like mustard gas, ricin, and cyanide.
04:23It was in the late 30s or 40s that the poison program would really flourish.
04:28That was the era of a Soviet biochemist named Gregory Myronovsky,
04:32a man who developed poisons and tested them out on hundreds, if not thousands of people.
04:37Some of them were given a deadly cocktail that killed them within 15 minutes.
04:41Despite these horrors, those responsible were never brought to justice,
04:45even after the Soviet Union dissolved and the lab was shut down.
04:49There are claims that Chimera was reopened a few years later,
04:52meaning these horrific tests could still be occurring today.
04:56Human vivisections of Hierophilus
04:59Human experimentation has been a part of medicine since its very inception.
05:03As an early pioneer of human anatomy,
05:05Hierophilus made several discoveries about the brain, eye, and the vascular system
05:10that are still supported by scientists today.
05:13However, these breakthroughs may have been achieved through unethical and violent means.
05:18Some have alleged that he would vivisect convicted criminals live,
05:22with the help of his associate Orisostratus,
05:25a method that was seen as controversial even back then.
05:28It is believed that hundreds of unwilling participants were subjected to Hierophilus' dissections.
05:33Although his work has been undoubtedly vital to modern anatomical research,
05:37knowing how he went about it casts his accomplishments in a much darker light.
05:42Dr. Leo Stanley's San Quentin Prison Experiments
05:46Chief surgeon at San Quentin, Dr. Leo Stanley used prisoners for various experiments from 1913 to 1951,
05:54some verging into dark territory.
05:56These experiments included sterilization and possibly finding treatments for Spanish flu.
06:02A strong supporter of eugenics,
06:04Stanley performed vasectomies on inmates who were sold on the idea of better health,
06:09reformed behavior, and a stronger sex drive.
06:12In one project that aimed to find a source of, quote, rejuvenation,
06:16Stanley used live prisoners for surgery that transplanted testicles, human or otherwise.
06:23Another experiment began with testicles sourced from executed prisoners,
06:27but when the supply ran dry, Dr. Stanley began using boar and goat testes in his work.
06:33Puerto Rico Birth Control Pill Trials
06:36In 1956, contraceptive pills, 20 times as strong as the ones used today,
06:41were first tested among Puerto Rican women who lived in government housing projects.
06:46Birth control is still relatively new, and as such is far from perfect.
06:50Before it could be marketed to the population, it first had to be tested,
06:53leading to one of the biggest controversies in recent medical history.
06:57In the 1950s, trials began in Puerto Rico, targeting impoverished, often undereducated women.
07:04They were given the contraceptives without being informed of potential side effects,
07:08resulting in several participants being caught off guard.
07:21The symptoms ranged from vomiting to menstrual irregularities, with some even being hospitalized.
07:27Their concerns were ignored for the sake of the study, causing the deaths of three people.
07:32Despite all of the negative responses, the pill was still approved,
07:36and those side effects still affect women to this day.
07:39The Boston Project
07:41Working with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1953 to 1957,
07:47Dr. William Sweet, who was the chief neurosurgeon at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital,
07:52gave uranium injections to 11 cancer patients.
08:00These individuals were already terminally ill, with all but one reportedly suffering from brain tumors.
08:06Dr. Sweet was interested in learning how the distribution of uranium affected the body,
08:10and whether it could be used to treat tumors.
08:13In 1995, under testimony, Dr. Sweet claimed he had the consent from his patients for his experiments.
08:20However, a lack of supporting documents, as well as the case of one patient who was found unconscious
08:26and later died without regaining consciousness or being identified, makes those claims slightly dubious.
08:33University of California Experiments on Newborns
08:37Leading up to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics,
08:40113 newborn babies, no older than three days old,
08:45were experimented on by scientists at the University of California's Department of Pediatrics in the early 1960s.
08:52Studies conducted on the babies included a battery of bizarre and seemingly unnecessary experiments
08:58regarding blood flow and pressure.
09:00In one test, over 40 babies were placed on circumcision boards
09:04and held upside down while doctors measured how their blood flowed to their head.
09:09In another, babies were placed ankle-deep in ice-cold water
09:13while the catheter was inserted into their aorta in an effort to monitor their aortic pressure.
09:18Guatemala Syphilis Study
09:20Even though the experiments were conducted more than 60 years ago,
09:24there are families still suffering the consequences.
09:27The United States has a sordid history of running scientific tests on their own citizens,
09:32but that certainly hasn't stopped them from exploiting people in other countries.
09:35In the 1940s, John Charles Cutler, the same doctor behind the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study,
09:42inflicted over a thousand Guatemalans with various venereal diseases.
09:47No one gave their consent, and they were certainly not informed
09:50that they were being infected with syphilis and gonorrhea.
09:53The unknowing subjects ranged from soldiers to orphans,
09:56and of the many afflicted, only 700 received treatment.
10:00This left the majority to suffer, with 83 people even dying.
10:11Despite the large amount of data they gathered,
10:14the findings were never published, making the victims' pain all for nothing.
10:18In 2010, the U.S. government formally apologized to Guatemala,
10:23but the victims and their families have received no compensation for their experience.
10:29The Monster Study
10:30Even the most seemingly simple tests can have lifelong consequences.
10:34In 1939, scientists from the University of Iowa conducted a trial
10:39to study the effects of stuttering on children.
10:42He developed the Monster Study to see if stuttering was not the result of biology,
10:46but of learned behavior.
10:47They sourced their subjects from orphanages,
10:50many of whom were unaware they were taking part in a study.
10:53Some already had a stutter, while others didn't.
10:56During the experiments,
10:57half of the subjects were praised for their speech pattern,
11:00while the rest were heavily derided.
11:02They were told things like,
11:03you must try to stop yourself immediately,
11:06don't ever speak unless you can do it right.
11:08Several of the children displayed negative psychological effects,
11:12including refusal to speak and becoming extremely self-conscious.
11:16Reports show that these children became withdrawn,
11:19and some stopped speaking altogether.
11:21These children were as young as 5 years old.
11:24The results of the Monster Study were never published,
11:27and it only came to light in 2001 after a reporter stumbled upon the papers.
11:32The surviving subjects were finally compensated in 2007.
11:36The Stanford Prison Experiment
11:38The study shows what happens when you put good people in a bad place.
11:43Designed by psychologist Philip Zimbardo,
11:45the goal of this 1971 experiment was to examine the psychological impact of imprisonment.
11:51Before the experiment,
11:52the psychology building at Stanford University was turned into a prison,
11:56with 24 undergraduate students divided into two groups,
12:00prisoners and guards.
12:02They took their commitment to the roles to disturbing levels,
12:05with the guards doling out severe mistreatment and the prisoners accepting it.
12:09I shouted in their faces,
12:11I'm going to hit you so hard,
12:13it's going to kill your whole family.
12:15Things got so intense that some students had to be removed due to the trauma.
12:19Although the exercise was supposed to last two weeks,
12:22and had the interest of the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy,
12:25it was shut down after just six days when the repercussions of the experiment became clear.
12:31This made me feel terrible my whole life.
12:35The Milgram Experiment
12:37Fascinated by what motivated Nazi officers to commit atrocities during World War II,
12:42Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment
12:46to see how far Americans would go before their conscience intervened.
12:50120 volts.
12:57In the 1960s study, a teacher would read questions to a learner,
13:02who was actually an actor pretending to participate.
13:05For every wrong answer, the teacher gave what they believed was a real electric shock,
13:09gradually increasing to 450 volts.
13:12150 volts.
13:14Answer forced.
13:16Experimenter, that's all. Get me out of here.
13:19If the teachers objected, they were forced to administer it regardless.
13:23After being assured they would be free of responsibility,
13:26most complied, even when the learner screamed in agony.
13:30Two-thirds of the 40 participants went all the way to 450 volts,
13:34proving our deep-rooted tendency to obey authority,
13:38even against our own moral judgment.
13:40Please continue. People surprise you.
13:43Dr. Bender's Electroconvulsive Therapy
13:46While working as a neuropsychiatrist at New York's Bellevue Hospital,
13:50Dr. Loretta Bender decided an effective treatment for children
13:54with developmental disorders or schizophrenia was electroconvulsive therapy,
13:58previously called electroshock therapy.
14:03Here we go.
14:06In 1947, Dr. Bender sent small electric currents through the brains of 98 children,
14:14some of whom were as young as toddlers.
14:17Another of Dr. Bender's methods for trying to alleviate schizophrenia
14:21was to give her young patients LSD.
14:23Ted Chabazinsky was one of the children who went through the therapy when he was 6 years old,
14:28and he later became a human rights activist
14:30who successfully fought against the use of electroshock therapy in Berkeley, California.
14:35You're going to find it a very liberating experience
14:39to get involved in our movement and to fight against the people
14:42who have tried to crush you when you were a child.
14:45Military experiments with mustard gas during World War II.
14:49It was a painful, horrifying, and secret part of America's history during World War II.
14:54In 1943, the Navy recruited upwards of 60,000 young men for a study.
14:59Only, they weren't asked to participate.
15:01They were told.
15:02Only when they arrived at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.,
15:06did they find the real purpose of the study,
15:08to measure the effects of mustard gas and other chemicals on humans.
15:12African-American men, shown here in protective gear,
15:16as well as Japanese-American and Puerto Rican soldiers, were singled out.
15:20Locked in chambers and exposed to the deadly gas,
15:23the men involved in these experiments suffered horrible health effects,
15:27including internal and external burns.
15:30Rollins Edwards, who I interviewed in my story, he still, more than 70 years later,
15:34he still has thick scabs on his skin, which he scratches at until they bleed.
15:40Additionally, as it was a wartime experiment, they were bound by oaths of secrecy
15:45and faced dishonorable discharge or imprisonment if they spoke of the order,
15:50the details of which were not formally declassified until 1993.
15:55Unit 731
15:57Unit 731 compound is one of the most terrifying secrets in the 20th century.
16:03World War II was a hotbed for horrific human experimentation.
16:07Several countries took place in ghastly research,
16:10with victims still being affected by the testing today.
16:13Unit 731 in Japan was one of the worst.
16:16They were unrelenting, performing vivisections and testing out violent weaponry
16:21like grenades and flamethrowers on prisoners of war.
16:24The atmosphere here is still heavy with the terror and the torture of that time.
16:29They also utilized biological warfare, knowingly giving people frostbite
16:34and using animals to spread various harmful pathogens.
16:37Over 14,000 people were murdered directly,
16:40while an estimated 300,000 died as a result of disease.
16:44Even after the torture chamber was shut down,
16:47most of the main perpetrators faced only light sentences,
16:50and the government has yet to admit to the true extent of the war crimes committed.
16:54Now claims have surfaced that Unit 731 not only tested on POWs,
16:59but also on thousands of Chinese civilians.
17:02Vanderbilt University's Vitamin Drinks
17:05Following World War II, researchers at Vanderbilt University
17:08gave over 800 pregnant women a mysterious concoction
17:12they were told was a special vitamin drink.
17:14It was actually a mixture that contained doses of radioactive iron,
17:18as the scientists were testing its absorption rate during pregnancy.
17:22The radiation these women were exposed to was reportedly 30 times higher than normal.
17:27Around three to four children died of cancer or leukemia as a result of the experiment,
17:32and some mothers developed rashes, lost hair and teeth,
17:36and contracted various types of cancer themselves.
17:39In 1994, almost 40 years later,
17:42Vanderbilt University faced a lawsuit for the four-year study
17:46and was forced to pay out more than $10 million in damages.
17:50Josef Mengele's Twin Study
17:53Known as the Angel of Death.
17:57He wanted to improve the stock of the Aryan race.
18:01Japan wasn't the only country committing scientific atrocities during the Second World War.
18:06The horrors carried out by Josef Mengele can only be described as evil,
18:11with some of his most twisted being conducted on twins.
18:14Mengele came around and asked for twins.
18:17My mother first didn't know what to say.
18:20Second time, no. Third time she said yes.
18:22Immediately two adjutants grabbed us.
18:26I never even had a chance to say goodbye.
18:29Using one as the control and the other as the experimental group,
18:32he put them through torture disguised as scientific testing.
18:36His twisted methods included amputating healthy limbs,
18:39performing blood transfusions between siblings,
18:42and in some macabre cases, sewing people together to create conjoined twins.
18:47Many died as a result of these procedures,
18:50and those who survived were often slain to be studied afterwards.
18:54Out of the 1,500 tested, only 200 made it out alive,
18:58making Mengele's experiments among the deadliest in history.
19:01The world's most notorious Nazi fugitive would never answer for his crimes.
19:07The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
19:09From 1932 to 1972, 600 African American farmers from Alabama
19:15were selected for a U.S. public health service program,
19:18receiving many benefits for their cooperation.
19:21However, they were never informed that they were being studied.
19:25Of the group, 399 men had syphilis, while the other 201 served as a control unit.
19:32Many of these subjects, mostly poor and illiterate sharecroppers,
19:36didn't know they were infected.
19:38Even with penicillin being developed as a cure in 1947,
19:42it was withheld from the patients.
19:44Under the false pretense of providing a special remedy,
19:47researchers performed painful and invasive spinal taps
19:50to investigate the disease's neurological consequences.
19:53Many ultimately died of syphilis,
19:55while at least 40 women contracted it from their husbands,
19:58and nearly 20 children were born with it.
20:01The study was only stopped in 1972 after an information leak.
20:06At the study's conclusion, only 74 of the original 600 men were still alive.
20:12But it wasn't until 1997 when President Bill Clinton issued a formal government apology.
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20:33Project MK-ULTRA
20:36Officially sanctioned in 1953 and backed by the CIA,
20:40this series of experiments studied the effects of mind control,
20:44with methods like hypnosis, drugs, isolation, and sensory deprivation.
20:48Under the direction of infamous Scottish-American psychiatrist Dr. Ewan Cameron,
20:52unsuspecting patients, many of whom had common ailments such as postpartum depression,
20:57were experimented on with aggressive drug cocktails and extreme techniques.
21:00The CIA enlisted the help of prisons, hospitals, and over 40 universities
21:05to perform experiments on unwitting subjects.
21:08In one of the sub-projects, Operation Midnight Climax,
21:12sex workers, acting as undercover agents for the CIA,
21:15gave clients LSD while the agency observed them through a one-way mirror.
21:21In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all records related to MK-ULTRA.
21:28However, subsequent investigations led by Senator Frank Church and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller,
21:34in addition to 20,000 records recovered in 1977, helped shed light on the activities.
21:40He never came out the same. He had a blank, blank look in his eye.
21:44He didn't know who we were. He didn't know we were his daughters.
21:49Which of these human-based experiments do you find the most disturbing?
21:53Let us know in the comments below.
21:55I remember looking back and seeing her arms stretched out in despair as she was pulled away.
22:05I never got to say goodbye to her.
22:25I never got to say goodbye to her.