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Content of Frank B's suitcase. A luggage tag, a black and white photograph of a young man in military uniform, a notebook with Frank's name written, a guide to Brooklyn, a copy of the Gospel of John, and an address book.

Tales From an Attic

Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives.
by Sierra Bellows via The American Scholar on March 4, 2024
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during a signing ceremony to ban conversion therapy.
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Conversion Therapy Is Harmful and Ineffective. So Why Is It Still Here?

Conversion therapies have never been about providing medical or mental care. Instead, they have been a tool to eradicate LGBTQ activism, culture and people.
by Andrea Ens via Made By History on May 15, 2023
Memorial to cancer patients of the Radiation Effects Study, 1960-1972

Radiation, Race, and Recognition

Accountability is crucial as we remember the individuals and communities harmed by our institutions and call for retroactive justice.
by Divya Kumar via Nursing Clio on May 26, 2022
Chlorodyne bottles and other medicines on display with a wooden background

Potions, Pills, and Patents: How Basic Healthcare Became Big Business in America

Basic healthcare in the 20th Century greatly impacted the way that the drug business currently operates in the United States.
by Alexander Zaitchik via Literary Hub on March 4, 2022
shelves full of old medicine bottles

The US Drug Industry Used to Oppose Patents – What Changed?

Patent medicine used to be associated with fraud and profiteering. What shifted the industry's positions on medical ethics and intellectual property?
by Joseph M. Gabriel via The Conversation on June 29, 2021
Nurse Harriet Curley takes the pulse of a patient at Sage Memorial Hospital on the Navajo Indian reservation in 1949. (AP)

How Native Americans Were Vaccinated Against Smallpox, Then Pushed Off Their Land

Nearly two centuries later, many tribes remain suspicious of the drive to get them vaccinated against the coronavirus.
by Dana Hedgpeth via Washington Post on March 28, 2021
An anatomical diagram of a man's muscular system.

Seeking the Truth Behind Books Bound in Human Skin

And the "gentleman" doctors who made them.
by Megan Rosenblum via Atlas Obscura on January 29, 2021

Abortion's Past

Before Roe, abortion providers operated on the margins of medicine. They still do.
by Maureen Paul via Boston Review on May 16, 2019
Image of one of the victims of the Tuskegee experiment.

AP Exposes the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The 50th Anniversary

Read the original article that unearthed the Tuskegee experiment.
by Jean Heller via AP News on July 25, 1972
Lethal injection table.
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Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 
by Corinna Barrett Lain via HNN on April 29, 2025
A stuffed bear in a room of empty children's beds at Willowbrook Hospital.

The Horrors of Hepatitis Research

The abusive experiments on mentally disabled children at Willowbrook State School were only one part of a much larger unethical research program.
by Carl Elliott via New York Review of Books on October 31, 2024
American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, Hartford, Connecticut.

What Was Psychiatric Deinstitutionalization?

An interview with sociologist and historian of psychiatry Andrew Scull about the history and legacy of psychiatric deinstitutionalization.
by Andrew Scull via Damage on April 22, 2024
A photograph of two Guatemalan women infected with syphillis in U.S. experiements, their eyes covered by black bars.

The Hidden U.S. Experiments in Guatemala

The U.S. purposefully infected thousands of Guatemalans with sexually-transmitted diseases in the 40s and 50s. Their grandchildren still carry the trauma.
by Lydia Crafts via Process: A Blog for American History on April 9, 2024
A participant in the Tuskegee syphilis study sits on steps in front of a house in Tuskegee.

The US Once Withheld Syphilis Treatment From Hundreds of Black Men in the Name of Science

The archival trove chronicles the extreme measures administrators took to ensure Black sharecroppers did not receive treatment for the venereal disease.
by Caitjan Gainty via The Conversation on January 12, 2024
Photo of "Madness: Race and insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" with photo of author Antonia Hylton alongside it.

What It Was Like to Be a Black Patient in a Jim Crow Asylum?

In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients.
by Julia Métraux, Antonia Hylton via Mother Jones on January 10, 2024
Collage of images of death certificates and related images.

Smithsonian Targeted D.C.’s Vulnerable to Build Brain Collection

The Smithsonian museum’s collection of human remains contains dozens of brains from vulnerable Washington, D.C., residents, many taken without consent.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy via Washington Post on December 14, 2023
Hand facing palm up and holding three pills.

Unreasonable Terms

How American drug companies have exploited government contracts to pursue profit over public interest.
by Daniel J. Kevles via New York Review of Books on October 5, 2023
Photo of surgeons performing surgery in a dimly lit operation room.
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For Hospitals, ‘Nonprofit’ Doesn't Mean ‘Charitable’

Medical debt has always been part of the history of nonprofit hospitals.
by Colleen M. Grogan via Made By History on September 28, 2023
Survivors walk among the smoldering ruins of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.

Hiroshima's Anniversary Marks an Injustice Done to Blast Survivors

On this date 78 years ago, the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. Survivors involuntarily provided key medical data for years, without receiving any help.
by Arthur Caplan via Scientific American on August 6, 2023
A young girl in profile with syringes looming behind and a reddish, gritty spiral behind

New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners

While we may never know the full truth, we owe it to those harmed and killed to illuminate their stories.
by Orisanmi Burton via Truthout on June 22, 2023
Collage of Holmesburg Prison aerial view with a gloved hand picking up a medical vial in the foreground.

Holmesburg Prison's Medical Experiments Are Philadelphia's 'Lasting Shame'

For over 20 years, Dr. Albert Kligman experimented on incarcerated men at Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison. Those who profited have yet to redress the harm.
by Tamar Sarai via Prism on May 15, 2023
Glass of wine spilling.

The Great Alcohol Health Flip-Flop Isn’t That Hard to Understand—If You Know Who Was Behind It

More than 30 years ago, the "French paradox" got America bleary-eyed.
by Tim Requarth via Slate on April 23, 2023
House Energy Committee Chairwoman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) speaks during a subcommittee hearing about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 8.
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The Eugenic Roots of ‘Quality Adjusted Life Years,’ and Why They Matter

Why a powerful House Republican wants to ban a common insurance practice.
by Pepper Stetler via Made By History on March 8, 2023
Class photo of white men medical students on the steps of a building.

Race and Early American Medical Schools: Review of "Masters of Health"

Medical schools in the antebellum U.S. were critical in the formation of a medical community that shared ideas about racial science.
by Natalie Shibley via Nursing Clio on February 14, 2023
Smallpox vaccine vial and syringe.

Never Forget That Early Vaccines Came From Testing on Enslaved People

The practice of vaccination in the U.S. cannot be divorced from the history of slavery.
by Jim Downs via STAT on June 19, 2022
Etching of a very tall Charles Byrne, with three companions

The Careless Display of Ill-Gotten Human Remains

Museums that harbor unethically obtained human remains are undergoing a reckoning. It’s about time.
by Ian Halim via UnDark on April 7, 2022
Collage of CIA director Richard Helms, Jimi Hendrix, and redacted Project MK-Ultra documents.

The Secret Black History of LSD

Research on psychedelics has been riddled with medical racism and exclusion but it hasn’t stopped Black people from finding creativity and solace through drugs.
by Kali Holloway via The Nation on March 22, 2022
Abortion protestors kneeling by pro-abortion signs.
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Failing to Embed Abortion Care in Mainstream Medicine Made It Politically Vulnerable

Actions by the medical profession in the 1970s still reverberate today.
by Carole Joffe via Made By History on January 11, 2022
Drawing of Transylvania University Medical Department

The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association

How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—and helped create the American Medical Association.
via The Disappearing Spoon on November 30, 2021
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers celebrates after an NFL game.
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Aaron Rodgers Isn’t the First Big-Name Wisconsin Anti-Vaccine Voice

But the media is treating him differently than it treated Matthew Joseph Rodermund more than a century ago.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on November 12, 2021
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