Technical Agency: Office of Surgeon General

Summary:

CPS Unit No. 140, an Office of Surgeon General (OSG) unit collaborating with the Army Epidemiological Board conducted experiments with COs as live subjects in medical and scientific experiments referred to as human guinea pig experiments. The Brethren, Friends and Mennonites helped recruit volunteers for this series of experiments that were administered through the scientific agency offices. “Though careful to weed out any experiments that might be too closely related to war-work, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Brethren Service Committee (BSC) agreed to provide oversight for numerous experiments around the United States”. (Yoder, 2010). The unit began in February 1945 and concluded in October 1946.

Directors:            Administered through Agency Offices

The People:       

Approximately five hundred COs volunteered for medical experiments conducted by researchers at leading universities and hospitals in the nation.  The American Friends Service Committee and the Brethren Service Committee served as oversight agencies for many of the studies, and the Mennonite Central Committee served in that capacity for one subunit.  A few Mennonites participated in Brethren and Friends projects, “but never more than eleven were to found in Unit No. 115 at any one time.  The Mennonites made their major contributions in other areas of service”. (Gingerich p. 270)

This section draws on the work of Anne M. Yoder of Swarthmore College, who during November 2010, prepared the document “The Swarthmore College Peace Collection:  Human Guinea Pigs in CPS Detached Service, 1943-1946, List Compiled by Anne M. Yoder, Archivist, November 2010”.  Most of the work “was gleaned from work reports sent to NSBRO and/or General Hershey by Mary B. Newman, director of Unit 115”.  (Yoder, p. 2)

Resources:

For information on Brethren service in human guinea pig experiments, see Leslie Eisan, Pathways of Peace: A History of the Civilian Public Service Program Administered by the Brethren Service Committee.  Elgin, IL:  Brethren Publishing House, 1948, Chapter 9 The Minessota Experiment in Starvation and Rehabilitation pp. 296-312; Appendix p. 459.

For information on Mennonites in human guinea pig experiments, see Melvin Gingerich, Service for Peace: A History of Mennonite Civilian Public Service. Akron, PA: Mennonite Central Committee printed by Herald Press, Scottdale, PA, 1949 270-273.

See also Albert N. Keim, The CPS Story: An Illustrated History of Civilian Public Service. Intercourse, PA:  Good Books, 1990.

See also J. Kenneth Kreider, A Cup of Cold Water: The Story of Brethren Service. Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 2001, Chapter 2.

Life Magazine , “Men Starve in Minnesota: Conscientious Objectors Volunteer for Strict Hunger Tests to Study Europe’s Food Problem” 30 July 1945.

See also Mulford Q. Sibley and Philip E. Jacob, Conscription of Conscience:  The American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940-47. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952, Chapter VII The Service Record of Conscientious Objectors pp. 124-151.

Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Camp periodicals database.

Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Human Guinea Pigs in CPS Detached Service, 1943-1946, List Compiled by Anne M. Yoder, Archivist, November 2010. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/conscientiousobjection/CPSResources/MEDICAL%20RESEARCH.pdf

See also Steven J. Taylor, Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009, pp. 80-88.

See Todd Tucker, The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keys and the Men Who Starved for Science. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.