
Decades after a Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets (2012) - benbreen
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/operation-delirium
======
stagbeetle
> _Ketchum often hears from aging test subjects looking for information about
> what the Army did to them. “I need to know everything that happened to me
> because it could give me some peace and fewer nightmares,” one veteran wrote
> to him. In such cases, Ketchum responds with a mixture of defensiveness and
> empathy. “Well, Mike,” he wrote to another veteran, “I guess some people
> find it satisfying to look back and condemn what doctors and others did half
> a century ago, especially if it lends itself to sensationalized movies, and
> entitles them to disability pensions.”_

Well.

~~~
eternalban
This doctor is notable for the consistency of his character. The Ketchum Oath
supersedes the Hippocratic one: "Do harm for the greater good!".

This greater good angle -- even God regrettably hides behind this -- is
possibly the most pernicious moral puzzle presented to humanity.

But in defense of God, at least in that (hypothetical if you wish) case there
is a guarantee that the asserted "greater good" and in fact the "good end" are
certain to come to pass.

I think it plain evil, this greater good fig leaf, whenever we are not clearly
afforded certitude of the desired outcome.

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danbruc
Somewhat related: In 1950 in operation Sea-Spray [1] the Navy released the
bacterium Serratia Marcescens [2] over the Bay Area to gain experimental data
for the development of biological weapons.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-
Spray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens)

~~~
pmoriarty
And:

 _" From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected
nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with
venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of
penicillin."_[1]

Also see [2] and [3]

[1] -
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/health/research/02infect.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/health/research/02infect.html)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States)

[3] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra)

------
bleair
I've never read any of the case data, but among the articles like this I've
read it often seems like people's sensitivity and reactions to these
neurological drugs varies by a range of 1-8x and the resulting impairment also
varies. It also seems like in some people have neurochemistry that self-
amplifies effects.

Too bad we don't see long term convert studies on how MDMA has positive
treatments affects on soldiers (hard to get funding for that obviously - these
studies are all about finding new and better ways to harm the enemy, not help
our soldiers)

------
intralizee
Manipulation and human test subjects is an interesting mixture which seems to
go hand in hand with most government funded medical professionals.

Ketchum deserves to go to a dark place if one exists.

------
JabavuAdams
And we wonder why some people don't trust scientists...

------
frostburg
Another source for the "finger dipped in vx" event that was brought up in
relation to the North Korean assassination.

~~~
mikeash
It adds an interesting detail:

"...he would casually walk across the room and bathe his finger in a Martini
to wash off the VX."

I wonder how close anyone came to drinking it afterwards.

~~~
selimthegrim
This anecdote is recounted (among with many others) in the book by Jon Ronson,
"The Men Who Stare at Goats"

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _" The Men Who Stare at Goats"_

This is probably the weirdest film I've seen in my life. I still can't make
heads or tails of it.

~~~
smacktoward
The book is ten times weirder. (Ten times better, too.)

