Holmesburg Prison

Holmesburg Prison is part of the City of Philadelphia Prison System. Built in 1896 and in continuous use until 1995, the facility is located at 8215 Torresdale Ave in the Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the site of a controversial decades-long dermatological, pharmaceutical, and biochemical weapons research projects involving testing on inmates,[1][2]. Holmesburg Prison is also notable for several major riots in the early 1970s as well as a report released in 1968 of the results of an extensive two-year investigation by the Offices of the Philadelphia Police Commissioner and the District Attorney of Philadelphia documenting hundreds of cases of the rape of inmates.[1][3][4]

Contents

Dermatological experimentation controversy

From approximately 1951 to 1974, Holmesburg Prison was the site of a comprehensive dermatological research operation, using prisoners as subjects. Led by Dr. Albert M. Kligman of the University of Pennsylvania on behalf of Dow Chemical Company and Johnson & Johnson, the program paid hundreds of inmates a nominal stipend to test a wide range of products and compounds, such as facial creams, moisturizers, perfumes, detergents, and anti-rash creams.[1][5] In one of the studies, for which Dow Chemical paid Kligman $10,000, Kligman injected dioxin—a highly toxic, carcinogenic component of Agent Orange, which Dow was manufacturing for use in Vietnam at the time—into 70 prisoners (most of them black). The prisoners developed severe lesions which went untreated for seven months.[9] Dow Chemical wanted to study the health effects of dioxin and other herbicides, and how they affect human skin, because workers at their chemical plants were developing chloracne. In the study, Kligman applied roughly the amount of dioxin Dow employees were being exposed to. In 1980 and 1981, some of the people who were used in this study sued Professor Kligman for a variety of health problems, including lupus and psychological damage. The 1998 book Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison, by Allen M. Hornblum, documents clinical non-therapeutic medical experiments on prison inmates at Holmesburg.

Kligman later continued his dioxin studies, increasing the dosage of dioxin he applied to 10 prisoners' skin to 7,500 micrograms of dioxin, which is 468 times the dosage that the Dow Chemical official Gerald K. Rowe had authorized him to administer. As a result, the prisoners developed inflammatory pustules and papules.[71]

The Holmesburg program also paid hundreds of inmates a nominal stipend to test a wide range of cosmetic products and chemical compounds, whose health effects were unknown at the time.[72][73] Upon his arrival at Holmesberg, Kligman is claimed to have said "All I saw before me were acres of skin ... It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time".[74] It was reported in a 1964 issue of Medical News that 9 out of 10 prisoners at Holmesburg Prison were medical test subjects.[75]

In 1967, the U.S. Army paid Kligman to apply skin-blistering chemicals to the faces and backs of inmates at Holmesburg to, in Kligman's words, "learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process."[6][7]

In popular culture

The prison was the location for many of the scenes in the 1996 motion picture Up Close & Personal.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c [|Hornblum, Allen] (1998). Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison. New York, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91990-8. http://www.routledge.com/0415919908. 
  2. ^ "Ex-Holmesburg Inmates File Suit Over Experiments". The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). October 18, 2000. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=PI&s_site=philly&p_multi=PI&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB7366EE6498F33&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved November 9, 2009. 
  3. ^ "Pennsylvania prison riot leaves 103 injured". The Bulletin (Bend, Deschutes County, Oregon: UPI). July 6, 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19700706&id=ZaASAAAAIBAJ&sjid=C_cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2626,2752743. Retrieved November 9, 2009. 
  4. ^ "Philadelphia Prison Shifts 235 After Slaying of Two Officials". The New York Times (New York, New York): p. 49. June 17, 1973. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40714F73C5F10738DDDAE0994DE405B838BF1D3. Retrieved November 9, 2009. 
  5. ^ From approximately 1951 to 1974, the Holmesburg State Prison in Pennsylvania was the site of extensive dermatological research operations, using prisoners as subjects. Led by Dr. Albert M. Kligman[70] of the University of Pennsylvania, the studies were performed on behalf of Dow Chemical Company, the U.S. Army, and Johnson & Johnson. In one of the studies, for which Dow Chemical paid Kligman $10,000, Kligman injected dioxin—a highly toxic, carcinogenic component of Agent Orange, which Dow was manufacturing for use in Vietnam at the time—into 70 prisoners (most of them black). The prisoners developed severe lesions which went untreated for seven months.[9] Dow Chemical wanted to study the health effects of dioxin and other herbicides, and how they affect human skin, because workers at their chemical plants were developing chloracne. In the study, Kligman applied roughly the amount of dioxin Dow employees were being exposed to. In 1980 and 1981, some of the people who were used in this study sued Professor Kligman for a variety of health problems, including lupus and psychological damage.[71] Kligman later continued his dioxin studies, increasing the dosage of dioxin he applied to 10 prisoners' skin to 7,500 micrograms of dioxin, which is 468 times the dosage that the Dow Chemical official Gerald K. Rowe had authorized him to administer. As a result, the prisoners developed inflammatory pustules and papules.[71] The Holmesburg program also paid hundreds of inmates a nominal stipend to test a wide range of cosmetic products and chemical compounds, whose health effects were unknown at the time.[72][73] Upon his arrival at Holmesberg, Kligman is claimed to have said "All I saw before me were acres of skin ... It was like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time".[74] It was reported in a 1964 issue of Medical News that 9 out of 10 prisoners at Holmesburg Prison were medical test subjects.[75] In 1967, the U.S. Army paid Kligman to apply skin-blistering chemicals to the faces and backs of inmates at Holmesburg to, in Kligman's words, "learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process." [|Hornblum, Allen] (1998). Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison. New York, New York: Routledge. pp. 320. ISBN 0-415-91990-8. http://www.routledge.com/0415919908. 
  6. ^ [|Hornblum, Allen] (1998). Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison. New York, New York: Routledge. pp. 320. ISBN 0-415-91990-8. http://www.routledge.com/0415919908. 
  7. ^ "Ex-Inmates Sue Penn and Kligman over Research". The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The University of Pennsylvania). Jan/Feb 2001. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0101/0101gaz3.html. Retrieved 9 November 2009. 

External links