Dr. Chester Southam was the driver of a study that injected live cancer cells into unknowing patient
The front-page headline of the New York World-Telegram on Jan. 20, 1964 shocked readers: “Charge Hospital Shot Live Cancer Cells Into Patients.”
The stunning accusation was that Brooklyn’s Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital, a facility known for serving an elderly population and those in need of long-term physical care, was “conducting cancer experiments on unsuspecting non-cancerous patients.”
Selwyn Raab, who was a new hire at the old World-Telegram when an editor assigned him to check out a tip about some research shenanigans at a Brooklyn hospital, was admittedly “astonished” by the allegations.
“The idea that they would inject sick people with cancer cells was incredible to me,” recalls Raab, now retired. “It struck me as abhorrent. Anyone of even limited intelligence knew you couldn’t get informed consent from senile people.”
The experiments were the idea of Dr. Chester Southam, a noted immunologist at Sloan-Kettering Hospital, who suggested a collaborative research project with the JCDH. Southam hoped to initiate an “evaluation of the immunologic status of patients with chronic non-neoplastic diseases, as revealed by promptness of rejection of subcutaneous cancer-cell homografts.”
http://nypost.com/2013/12/28/nycs-forgotten-cancer-scandal/
"remember the three courageous and principled JCDH physicians who refused to take part in the study, resigned their positions, and went public that an unethical clinical trial was occurring in a New York City hospital"