The Ethical Issues of the Hepatitis Studies

at the Willowbrook State School for Children

The Willowbrook State School was formerly an army hospital in the Willowbrook
neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, that was converted to both house and teach
children with intellectual disabilities in the year 1947. At that time, it is one of the few
institutions in the United States that enrolled students with intellectual disabilities. During the
early 1950s, a hepatitis outbreak began to infect the enrolled students; although the hepatitis
infections spread naturally at first, controlled hepatitis studies were conducted on students
beginning in 1956. The study was called the “Willowbrook Hepatitis Experiment”, led by Dr.
Saul Krugman, a pediatrician and the principal investigator of the said study from the New
York School of Medicine, and was assisted by Dr. Joan P. Giles. The Willowbrook Hepatitis
Experiment was one of the medical studies, like the Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment, that has
become known for its grossly unethical use of vulnerable subjects and lack of informed
consent, which has then led to changes in the ethical guidelines in clinical studies,
specifically the safeguard and consent process for people with mental disabilities.

When the name “Willowbrook” is mentioned in the field of research, this became
synonymous with unethical medical research. Various ethical principles have been violated in
the midst of conducting this experiment. Thus, through the years of staying at the institute
wherein the experiment is being conducted the school staffs as well as the subjects are more
likely to be exposed to the disease. Some argued that despite the parent’s consent, the
experiment unknowingly affects the children in terms of mental and physical aspects and it is
considered as a violation unless it is in the interests of the child. They are injecting them with
an illness without any idea of what kind of possibilities and potential risks that might
happened after the experiment.