Introduction

Vaccinationists have always sought out those who are in a weak position to resist or reject their experiments. These examples include experiments on children and experiments on peoples subjected to colonialism and neocolonialism. However, this group also includes prisoners. This article is not about prisoners and the debates about how offenders are treated. Rather, this article is about vaccinationists, and what their use of prisoners says about them.

The Newgate Prison Experiment

Prison experiments go back to the initial days of inoculation in the United Kingdom. Inoculation (deliberately infecting someone with matter from a (usually) mild case of smallpox) was introduced into England by Lady Montagu around 1721.

As a result, experiments started to be done on the practise, particularly by Charles Maitland, Montagu’s physician. One of the experiments was done in Newgate prison. 6 prisoners were inoculated as an experiment. In this case, the prisoners did benefit with a reprieve. It is said in some sources that they were under threat of execution, some others have questioned this and said that they were under threat of transportation to Australia instead. 5 of the prisoners became infected with smallpox as a result and the other did not. He had concealed a previous smallpox infection. The prisoners survived the process and it was judged a success.

There were critics, one Dr. Wagstaffe stated the disease given from inoculation was nothing like smallpox.

The Bilibid Prison Experiments 1906

A darker prison experiment took place in 1906 in the Philippines. This information is drawn from an article called Knots in the Fabric.

Robert Strong was leader of an organisation called Bureau of Labratories and in this capacity he did medical experiments.

A little bit of context: a scientist called Waldemar Haffkine had created a cholera vaccine. This vaccine had some acceptance among scientists, but it had bad side effects. Strong wanted to get acceptance for his own vaccine, which he claimed was as effective as Haffkine’s, but with lesser side effects.

As such he wanted to run experiments to write up an article demonstrating the superiority of his own vaccine. As part of this process, he lined up 24 prisoners without any form of informed consent and vaccinated them with a vaccine made using Haffkine’s approach. He did this in order to observe the side effects of the Haffkine vaccine to prove his own superior.

This is already unethical, but it gets worse. The vaccine was contaminated with plague and as a result 13 of the prisoners died. While there was an investigation into the contamination, there were no real consequences for Strong and he eventually became a Professor of Tropical Medicine at Harvard.

The Clinton Farms Polio Vaccine Experiments

Alongside Salk and Sabin, there was a third developer of polio vaccines in the 1950s, Hilary Koprowski. He did experiments in many different contexts, including at institutions for disabled children and in colonial Africa. However, he also did experiments at Clinton Farms women’s prison.

In the 1950s, around 60 infants were born a year in this prison. This was a prison with a more liberal regime, including day release.

Like Sabin, Koprowski believed only a live virus vaccine would be effective, and he created multiple different attenuated strains of the 3 different types of poliovirus. Koprowski tested a range of vaccine strains on the children born to the prisoners in the second half of the 1950s. Many of these examples were written up in the scientific literature.

Prisoners had an incentive to comply with Koprowski’s experiments, as vaccinated children were able to stay with their mothers for longer. It may also have been seen as a positive in parole applications. One child did fall ill after the vaccine and was sent to hospital in 1955, but this is not written up in Koprowski’s articles.

Conclusion

Vaccinationists will usually pick the easiest targets to test their vaccine products. This includes prisoners alongside other groups. This history is often ignored as it does not fit the narratives of heroic but ethical vaccination.