Pedro Albizu Campos - Cancer Research Manuscript

Cancer Research Manuscript

In 1932, Albizu published a manuscript accusing Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of killing Puerto Rican patients in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital, as part of his medical experiments for the Rockefeller Institute. Albizu quoted as his source a letter, received from a third party, in which Dr. Rhoads admitted to injecting Puerto Rican patients with live cancer cells:

"The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and
thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere. They are even worse
than the Italians...I have done my best to further the process of exter-
mination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several
more...All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the
unfortunate subjects."

The letter contained profoundly racist statements. It dehumanized Puerto Ricans completely, boasted of "killing off eight" of them, and "transplanting cancer into several more." On 27 June 1949, however, he was featured on the front cover of TIME Magazine.

Washington State University professor Victor Villanueva wrote, "While in prison, Albizu repeatedly charges that he is a target of human radiation experiments. U.S. officials and the U.S. and Puerto Rican press dismiss the allegations as the ravings of a madman. Yet his skin is severely swollen and cracking. Although Albizu’s allegations are never proven, the U.S. Department of Energy does disclose in 1995 that human radiation experimentation had indeed been conducted on prisoners without prisoner consent from the 1950s through the 1970s."

Years later, in 2003, an independent investigation into Dr. Rhoads' "cancer research" in Puerto Rico was led by the eminent bioethicist Dr. Jay Katz of Yale University. Their findings confirmed Albizu Campos' original concerns, that Puerto Rican patients were being used as "cancer guinea pigs." The American Association for Cancer Research then removed Dr. Rhoads' name from their annual award intended for an "individual on the basis of meritorious achievement in cancer research."