Title
Condemning the use of African Americans for experimentation - For the purpose of condemning the unethical use of medical experiments on African Americans.
Body
CITY COUNCIL OF THE
City of Annapolis
Resolution 14-23
Introduced by: Alderwoman Finlayson
Co-sponsored by: Alds. Tierney, Schandelmeier, Pindell Charles, Savidge, Gay
A RESOLUTION concerning
Condemning the use of African Americans for experimentation
FOR the purpose of condemning the unethical use of medical experiments on African Americans.
WHEREAS, The City of Philadelphia issued an apology on October 6, 2022, for unethical medical experiments on Holmesburg Prison inmates from the 1950s through the 1970s, and most of the inmates involved were African American; and
WHEREAS, The U.S. Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs issued a report on Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison in 1998, "Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison," by A.M. Hornblum stating in part, "Hundreds of prisoners were used to test products from facial creams and skin moisturizers to perfumes, detergents, and anti-rash treatments. Other experiments used the inmates as test subjects for far more hazardous, even potentially lethal, substances, such as radioactive isotopes, dioxin, and chemical warfare agents."; and
WHEREAS, Millions of dollars from "many of America's leading drug and consumer-goods companies [were] made available for the doctors motivated by the desire for fame and money based on these medical experiments." The report goes on to say, "many of these doctors established their careers based on their experiments on these inmate subjects, who were isolated, cheap, and locked away from the public eye"; and
WHEREAS, One of the doctors who did research in Holmesburg Prison was dermatologist Albert Montgomery Klingman, co-inventor of Retin-A, the acne cream and wrinkle-remover, who said in a 1986 history of the University of Pennsylvania's dermatology department, "It was years before ...
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