As part of a California narcotics network thriving in the 1990s, “Enyce” (not his real name) was swept up in a law enforcement dragnet feeding into the state prison system. During the course of “his stretch,” he accumulated a series of ailments that he maintains were the fault of the penal system. Although no conclusive proof exists, the circumstances of his imprisonment experiences are a testament to the questionable relationship of the Black Diaspora and the medical industry since the beginnings of the American experience as a whole.
During his confinement at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, he witnessed copious amounts of medication distributed throughout the inmate population. A huge amount of this was pharmacological products in the way of psychotropic medicine and antipsychotics, to be used, in his words, as “chemical straitjackets to keep prisoners in line,” behaviorally speaking.
Those who refused to comply were threatened with loss of phone privileges, etc. Less one would think these were the grumblings of disgruntled convicts, there is substantial documentation to back this up.
In a paper titled “The Administration of Psychotropic Drugs to Prisoners: State of the Law and Beyond,” as far back as 1990 for The California Law Review, Jami Floyd stated:
“Drug treatment is replacing earlier methods such as lobotomy, insulin shock, and electroshock.”
For his part, Enyce, like many African Americans, received numerous cocktails for hypertension, a likely origin for the kidney damage he is now saddled with. During the course of his sentence, several compassionate Black correctional officers (COs) took him aside to offer the friendly directive to seek medical opinions outside the California Department of Corrections (CDC).
Suitable Subjects
Just as the 19th century was a period of rapid technological change, that same period saw drastic improvement in overall health, in no small part due to the seismic shift in the refinement of medicine. These advances were propelled by copious research, which in turn required the study of anatomy. Anatomy, in turn, is the scientific study of the structure and organization of the human body. Anatomy is divided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. But to progress to any significant degree, an intimate familiarization with actual human bodies, or cadavers are essential.
According to Edward C. Halperin’s “The poor, the Black, and the marginalized as the source of cadavers in United States anatomical education (2007), “When the practice of hands-on anatomical dissection became popular in United States medical education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, demand for cadavers exceeded the supply. Slave bodies and thefts by grave robbers met this demand. Members of the public were aware that graves were being robbed and countered with various protective measures. Since the deterrence of grave robbing took time and money, those elements of society who were least economically and socially advantaged were the most vulnerable. Enslaved and free African Americans, immigrants, and the poor were frequently the target of grave robbing.”
Old horror films creatively depict grave robbery set during this era, which is a point of historical fact. Today, corpses or cadavers are generally legally procured via donations to institutions of learning, but two hundred years ago this was not the case, as Halperin points out.
“Since the deterrence of grave robbing took time and money, those elements of society who were least economically and socially advantaged were the most vulnerable. Enslaved and free African Americans, immigrants, and the poor were frequently the target of grave robbing. The politically powerful tolerated this behavior except when it affected their own burial sites. Slave owners sold the bodies of their deceased chattel to medical schools for anatomic dissection. Stories of the ‘night doctors’ buying and stealing bodies became part of African American folklore traditions.”
Slavery had been firmly embedded by the dawn of the 19th century, and those in bondage proved a major force in the economic growth of the fledgling nation. Their lives used up, they proved to be a financial boom to their owners even in death.
Josiah Clark Nott (March 31, 1804 – March 31, 1873), founder of the University of Alabama in 1847, made the following declaration.
“I think we may safely conclude, that the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery.”
An anthropologist, physician, slave owner, surgeon, and researcher into the origins of yellow fever, Nott did not use his talents to operate on the enslaved to prove his theories like “the Father of gynecology” James Marion Sims. Through his academic studies and publishing he promoted racial classification and eased the stigma for Sims to experiment on living subjects, usually Black women and often without the benefit of anesthesia. That much of his focus involved non-consenting subjects is the basis for an ethical debate that continues to this day.
Exploiting the Vulnerable
Ultimately, slaves enabled the advancement of medicine and science in general due to their existence as marginalized elements of society. With the dawn of the 20th century and the end of the slave era, this exploitation of the marginalized continued.
Much like their predecessors of the slave era, the incarcerated were and are an especially attractive resource for scientific research, as Patrick M. Flynn and Kevin Knight stated in a paper for the National Library of Medicine titled Clinical trials involving prisoners in October of 2022.
“Prisoners are one of those special populations due to their restrained liberties and potential for being abused. Unless additional safeguards are implemented and constantly monitored, prisoners will continue to be at risk of being coerced into participating as research subjects,” they said in the research study.
Among the most sensational were programs orchestrated by chemist Sidney Gottlieb for the CIA, most especially their attempts to achieve global mastery via mind control. Under the code name Project MK-ULTRA, it remains shrouded in mystery even after a Senate subcommittee hearing.
Among its subjects was the legendary gangster “Whitey” Bulger, who was subjected to treatment while incarcerated at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in the 1950s, under the pretext of seeking a cure for schizophrenia.
Closer to home, a few years ago, the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) apologized and began to make restitution for dermatology experiments conducted during the 1970s at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville.
The research was overseen by William Epstein, MD (now deceased), and Howard Maibach, MD, came to light via a 2022 report. Maibach, who is now 97 years old, is reportedly still on staff at the facility.
Perhaps 2,600 incarcerated men, many of them Black, were paid $30 a month. These individuals, who did not give informed consent, were exposed to a variety of pesticides and herbicides. In turn, Epstein and Maibach had been trained by Dr. Albert Kligman, who was involved in similar, questionable experiments at Pennsylvania’s Holmesburg Prison in the 1950s, as reported by Our Weekly (see the August 19, 2010 issue).
Kligman was a pioneer in the skin care industry who invented the acne medication Retin-A. His experiments on prisoners at the prison primarily involved dermatology, but included psychoactive testing for the Department of Defense.
Enyce got a reprieve of sorts with a referral to the medical center at the University of California, San Diego. He still suffers from his ailments, but is being given adequate treatment for his health issues at the expense of the state.
