Harriet A. Washington

An important read, though coming to it almost two decades after publication also does place the contemporary chapters at the end as a historical set. Densely researched with end notes (I read this as an ebook, so helpfully they were a link away instead of flipping back and forth), should definitely be part of a scientist's bibliography when considering ethical research populations if humans are involved.

Also, this ended up being on the denser side for book club- I did finally finish, but far past the July deadline, whoops.… (más)

Many terrible things have been done to African Americans for the sake of medical experiments. There's no denying this. Some of the examples given in this work were incredibly gut wrenching to read; almost impossible to believe that people could be so cruel to each other. The practice hasn't ceased to exist but things have gotten better. The author does make this statement a couple of times. So the problem I had with this book was its' almost universal condemnation of the medical field. There are always two sides to every story and for me, the author's almost complete lack of objectivity took away from the over all credibility of the book.… (más)