In the previous episode, we heard how one of the volunteers, sam legg, chopped off some of his fingers with an axe in the delirium of his starvation. He's still ashamed of it half a century later. Did he consent to that feeling when he signed up? And did they fully understand the consequences of their participation? Of course not. They thought they would be hungry. They didn't understand that starvation could cause them to start losing their moral bearings. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. Visit child and family resource network dot org to day.
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment could never be done today. No scientist could get permission to starve 36 healthy people for close to a year. But why? Revisionist History tries to follow the strange logic that governs our thinking about medical experiments.
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