Controversy
An article entitled 'Human Guinea Pigs: A Warning' published in 1962 in the journal Twentieth Century by Maurice Pappworth, a Liverpool-born physician, caused public alarm and bitter controversy among members of the medical profession. It highlighted many unethical practices regarding human experimentation at the postgraduate medical school. According to Pappworth, often harmful experiments had been carried out without valid consent on notably vulnerable patients, such as children and the mentally ill. Research which included cardiac catheterisation and liver biopsy experiments had included patients' having their insulin withheld for two days, during which time they became, and felt, ill.
A number of physicians who had travelled from Australia and New Zealand to seek membership to the Royal College of Physicians were shocked to be confronted with the situation as described by Malcolm Watson, who had secured a post at the British Postgraduate Medical School in 1953:
To tell a patient that “we are going to do some test to see how your ulcer is getting on”, then spending half a day catheterizing him the effects of medication seemed highly dishonest, if not illegal.
Read more about this topic: Royal Postgraduate Medical School
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