Medical experimentation in the U.S.

After World War II ended and everyone began to realize all the awful things the Nazi doctors and medical authorities were doing to people, the idea of medical experimentation on humans became something that could no longer be ignored. Josef Mengele earned the nickname "Angel of Death" because of the procedures he participated in and ordered to be done on people in the concentration camps. To this day, whenever the Holocaust of WWII is brought up in conversation, someone always talks about the medical experiments and how awful they were. I think it's fascinating how many people are not aware of the medical experiments that have happened, and in some cases are still happening, in the United States. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is one of the more well-known cases, but there has been experimentation within the military, in mental health facilities and hospitals, and in prisons. These experiments have used various things such as infectious diseases, chemicals, radioactive materials, and psychological techniques. This is a Wikipedia page I came across:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

Today, another form of what could be considered medical experimentation is happening all over the country. The Intersexed Rights Movement is fighting for the right of intersexed people to not have a doctor choose their sex for them when they're born. Intersexed people are people who are born with both male and female sex organs. Often, when they're born, their doctors choose to remove one set of sex organs, thereby choosing the child's single biological sex. Sometimes the parents agree with the doctor and want to choose their child's sex, but often the parent has no idea what the doctor is planning or that their child is even born intersexed until after the surgery is performed. Not only is this surgery dangerous on newborn babies, it often causes great psychological and emotional problems for the intersexed person later in life. It can also cause health issues. These doctors often don't have a valid medical reason for these surgeries; they simply do them because they're curious or they feel the need to make a major life decision for the child. They often claim that there is a much bigger risk for the child if the surgery isn't performed, persuading the parents to consent to it. This is yet another form of unnecessary medical experimentation that is happening too quietly, right here in our own country.

Sarah Bradley