Podcast
Swindled
The episode highlighted that the author, who had worked at Holmesburg Prison, wrote the book to document the unethical medical experiments conducted on inmates, such as asbestos and talc injections. The hosts emphasized the book’s role in exposing how prisoners were used as paid research subjects under the guise of standard scientific practice at the time. They presented it as a crucial account for understanding this dark chapter in medical history.
Episode: 88. The Liability (Johnson & Johnson)
Alan M. Hornblume, who worked at Holmesburg Prison during the unethical medical experiments, wrote a book titled 'Acres of Skin' about his experience. The book documented how prisoners were used as subjects for various harmful experiments, including the injection of asbestos and talc into their lower backs.
That's how Dr. Albert Kligman described seeing the prisoners for the first time to a newspaper reporter in 1966. Quote, "Dr. Albert Kligman died in 2010 at the ripe old age of 93 with no regrets whatsoever. My use of paid prisoners as research subjects in the 1950s and 1960s was in keeping with this nation's standard protocol for conducting scientific investigations at the time."