Canadians starved Native children in the name of science

[matou]

This is outrageous.

When Canadian researchers went to a number of Northern Manitoba reserves in 1942 they found rampant malnourishment.
Instead of recommending increased federal support to improve the health of hundreds of Aboriginals suffering from a collapsing fur trade and already limited government aid, they decided against it.
Nutritionally-deprived Aboriginals would be the perfect test subjects.

A University of Guelph post-doctorate student was doing research on something else and came across some vague references to "studies done on Indians."

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...in_nutrition_experiments_researcher_says.html

more articles and responses to come...

 

[matou]

The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements which were withheld from the rest.
At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000.
In 1947, plans were developed for research on about 1,000 hungry aboriginal children in six residential schools in Port Alberni, B.C., Kenora, Ont., Schubenacadie, N.S., and Lethbridge, Alta.
One school deliberately held milk rations for two years to less than half the recommended amount to get a ‘baseline’ reading for when the allowance was increased. At another, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn’t.
One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...in_nutrition_experiments_researcher_says.html

 

[txsvicki]

Horrible. Probably other "studies" were done in addition to malnouishment if they dig deeper. The effects of starving should have been known world wide by 1942.

 

[matou]

Horrible. Probably other "studies" were done in addition to malnouishment if they dig deeper. The effects of starving should have been known world wide by 1942.

The war obviously had an impact on "science" in Canada. :thumbsdown: :snooty:

 

[matou]

The experiments, repugnant today, would probably have been considered ethically dubious even at the time, said Mosby.
“I think they really did think they were helping people. Whether they thought they were helping the people that were actually involved in the studies – that’s a different question.”
Not much was learned from those hungry little bodies. A few papers were published — “they were not very helpful,” Mosby said — and he couldn’t find evidence the Norway House research program was completed.
“They knew from the beginning that the real problem and the cause of malnutrition was underfunding. That was established before the studies even started and when the studies were completed that was still the problem.”

I don't think the government believed they were helping anyone. Nishawbe people were considered the **** of the country and they actively tried to eliminate them via policy (Indian Act) and residential schools. I agree more will become uncovered through this.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...in_nutrition_experiments_researcher_says.html

 

[matou]

Mosby — whose work at the University of Guelph focuses on the history of food in Canada — was researching the development of health policy when he ran across something strange.

"I started to find vague references to studies conducted on 'Indians' that piqued my interest and seemed potentially problematic, to say the least," he told The Canadian Press. "I went on a search to find out what was going on."

Government documents eventually revealed a long-standing, government-run experiment that came to span the entire country and involved at least 1,300 aboriginals, most of them children.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...boriginal-nutritional-experiments-canada.html

 

[matou]

They found people who were hungry, beggared by a combination of the collapsing fur trade and declining government support. They also found a demoralized population marked by, in the words of the researchers, "shiftlessness, indolence, improvidence and inertia."

The researchers suggested those problems — "so long regarded as inherent or hereditary traits in the Indian race" — were in fact the results of malnutrition.

Instead of recommending an increase in support, the researchers decided that isolated, dependent, hungry people would be ideal subjects for tests on the effects of different diets.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...boriginal-nutritional-experiments-canada.html

 

[matou]

Many dental services were withdrawn from participating schools during that time. Gum health was an important measuring tool for scientists and they didn’t want treatments on children’s teeth distorting results.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...ungry-malnourished-aboriginal-children-paper/

 

[matou]

One school deliberately held milk rations for two years to less than half the recommended amount to get a ‘baseline’ reading for when the allowance was increased. At another, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn’t.

One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted. A special enriched flour that couldn’t legally be sold elsewhere in Canada under food adulteration laws was used on children at another school.

And, so that all the results could be properly measured, one school was allowed none of those supplements.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...ungry-malnourished-aboriginal-children-paper/

 

[nao]

jmo in some ways it has'nt changed too much at some of the more northern or remote band lands. The food stores are, more like corner stores little selection and expensive, and the income is often very low. Don't know how that can be fixed thou. moo

 

[brighidin]

jmo in some ways it has'nt changed too much at some of the more northern or remote band lands. The food stores are, more like corner stores little selection and expensive, and the income is often very low. Don't know how that can be fixed thou. moo

That is because the North West Company has a monopoly on bringing food to the North and they inflate prices ridiculously. Ten dollars or more for a litre of milk. Profit before people. In the 1970s, George Manuel wrote that reserves are like the fourth world and that still holds true. Getting rid of private enterprise will help. So will self-government. It isn't a full solution, but it would be a start. Ending the effects of years of policies of assimilation and racist state policies isn't easy.

 

[brighidin]

Many dental services were withdrawn from participating schools during that time. Gum health was an important measuring tool for scientists and they didn’t want treatments on children’s teeth distorting results.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...ungry-malnourished-aboriginal-children-paper/

Reminds me of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

 

[otto]

It seems to me that it's all a matter of perspective. What I'm reading is that some first nation people got vitamin supplements and enriched flour - both good for them - when the rest of the Canadians did not get those dietary improvements. All mention for children being deprived of milk rations is left hanging, and tied to an absence of documentation.

"“This is a period of scientific uncertainty around nutrition,” said Mosby. “Vitamins and minerals had really only been discovered during the interwar period."

...

"The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements which were withheld from the rest.

At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...utritional-experiments-paper/article13246564/

I really have to wonder why it is mentioned that not all children received the vitamins. Some did, and that is what matters. I bet there were plenty of non-first nation people that got no more than 1500 calories per day and who did not get the vitamins.

So vitamins had just been discovered as being beneficial. There was a group of people that had 1500 calories per day during World War 2 (that's at lot more than many people had during that war). These people had land and lived off the land for generations.

Some of these people were given a the newly discovered vitamin supplement.

What am I missing? Who did something wrong here?
______________________________________________________________-

Any suggestions about studies on children were not followed up on and there doesn't appear to be any related documentation - so on what are the claims based? If the school rationed the milk, maybe it was related to poverty.
______________________________________________________________

Regarding enriched flour, what is in the enriched flour that was not yet legal in Canada:

Enriched Flour or Enriched White Flour:

(d)shall contain in 100 grams of flour
i.0.64 milligrams of thiamine
ii.0.40 milligrams of riboflavin
iii.5.30 milligrams of niacin or niacinamide
iv.0.15 milligrams of folic acid, and
v.4.4 milligrams of iron

(e) may contain

(xv) in 100 grams of flour
A.0.31 milligrams of vitamin B6
B.1.3 milligrams of d-pantothenic acid, and
C.190 milligrams of magnesium

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/labeti/inform/flofare.shtml

Enriched Flour 1940: "The international effort to start enriching flour was launched during the 1940s as a means to improve the health of the wartime populations of the British and United States while food was being rationed and alternative sources of the nutrients were scarce. The decision to choose flour for enrichment was based on its commonality in the diets of those wartime populations, ranging from the rich to the poor. A major factor in the switch to enriched flour in the United States was the U.S. Army's restriction in 1942, that it would purchase only enriched flour."

Enriched flour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[otto]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...ungry-malnourished-aboriginal-children-paper/

As with all the rest of the people in Canada, during war time, or just after WW2, when most of the world was starving and rations were common, many went without vitamin supplements and enriched flour.

It only takes a few minutes with someone that lived through WW2 to understand that no one had anything in the 1940s. The world was a war machine at that time. Why would anyone that had lived off the land for generations expect someone else to bring them food when people didn't have anything?

 

[txsvicki]

Enriched foods are now by some to be very bad for us. Especially the folic acid.

 

[Nova]

Otto, I believe it is considered unethical to deny beneficial treatment from people (especially growing children!) in the name of research.

So whether the comparison group would have normally received vitamins or not, it was unethical to given the enrichments to some and not to others.

 

[matou]

Hey great, lets use already segregated and marginalized groups of children that the gov. already wanted to assimilate anyway and perform experiments on them. Great idea! No problem at all, right? wow. JMO

 

[Tugela]

Hey great, lets use already segregated and marginalized groups of children that the gov. already wanted to assimilate anyway and perform experiments on them. Great idea! No problem at all, right? wow. JMO

They weren't performing experiments on them, they were helping some people, but not others, and monitoring the results. This happens all the time today.

It would be different if they claimed to be giving food that was really sawdust as a placebo for example, but that is not what happened.

 

[Flinders]

But this 'experiment' was done during WW 2 prisoners of war. How much can I limit prisoner to food.

 

[otto]

Enriched foods are now by some to be very bad for us. Especially the folic acid.

70 years ago, at the time of WW2 and when many people were on food rations, enriched flour contained nutrients that people did not get in their daily diet.