Historians usually refer to Nazi Germany's IG Farben as the epitome of bad medicine, where horrifying medical experiments were routinely carried out on innocent civilians. Most people accept the history of IG Farben as true, yet those same people are reluctant to admit that today's modern pharmaceutical industry is not only directly descended from IG Farben,
it still follows many of the same inhumane practices.
In this comparison chart, we take a closer look at the similarities between the medical experimentation carried out in Nazi Germany vs. the practices of Big Pharma in the United States today. The times have changed, and medical experimentation has a prettier face, but it's still the same horrifying practice of exploiting the most vulnerable citizens in society to outright criminal experiments with pharmaceuticals.
Be sure to also read the Human Medical Experimentation Timeline to get the big picture on the true history of human experiments in modern medicine.
| Then: In Nazi Germany |
Is Equivalent To |
Now: In the United States |
| IG Farben |
= |
Big Pharma
The American Chemistry Council |
| Concentration camps |
= |
Experimental drug testing centers
New York City children's homes (during the late 1980s and 1990s)
For the EPA's proposed CHEERS study: Health care centers in Duvall County, Fla. |
| SS Doctors |
= |
"Poorly trained and unlicensed clinicians"
Workers in New York City children's homes |
| Concentration camp inmates (Jews -- including Jewish children, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill individuals, mentally challenged individuals) |
= |
Experimental drug test subjects (poor people -- including children in poor families, orphans and foster care children; immigrants; mentally ill and mentally challenged individuals who are unable to hold down a regular job)
For CHEERS: Children born to low-income, minority families |
| Concentration camp scientists forcing inmates to take pills and powders, or simply just injecting them |
= |
Giving potential test subjects long forms written in language they may not understand (either because they are immigrants or because it's written in obscure technical jargon) as "informed consent"
In the New York City children's homes: Forced noncompliant children to take experimental AIDS drugs by feeding them medication through tubes placed in their stomachs |
| Test subjects "paid" for use of their bodies by being allowed to live |
= |
Test subjects going to experimental drug centers paid for use of their bodies with "as little as $25 per day or as much as $6,900 for seven months," according to Bloomberg reporters Evans and Michael Smith
For the low-income families who were to take part in the EPA's proposed CHEERS: $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt and a framed certificate of appreciation |
| IG Farben "daughter" companies like Bayer have worked with the German government to set up a compensation fund for survivors of concentration camp medical experiments, but some survivors have experienced difficulty getting the money owed to them. |
= |
SFBC: Three test subjects who revealed the details of the potentially exploitative experimental drug test industry to the media were threatened with deportation, unless they signed statements denying the validity of the resulting articles.
New York City ACS: Though openly denying wrongdoing, ACS officials have both analyzed their own records for information on the extent and ethics of the experimental AIDS drug tests on foster children and contracted the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct an independent review. |
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