The Shocking Results of Deer Island Navy Prison Experiment on 1918 Flu Pandemic

Following the August 1918 flu pandemic, in an attempt to develop a vaccine, sailors who were in prison at the Naval Training Station on Deer Island in Boston Harbor were offered amnesty from their prison sentences if they agreed to partake in an experiment to see how the disease spread. Among the volunteers, 39 did not have a history of being infected with influenza.

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First the volunteers would be sprayed in the eyes, nose and mouth with infected aerosols. Then they would be injected with infected lung tissue from dead patients. Next their throats would be swabbed with discharges from the sick and dying. Finally, they would have to sit open-mouthed while a sick patient coughed in their faces. The administrators also sent 10 healthy sailors to be exposed to the sick men.

Shocking Results

None of the volunteers became sick (infected with the symptomatic disease). The prisoners either had strong immune systems or had developed natural immunity (without vaccinations) with prior exposure to the virus during the weeks preceding the trial, experiencing few symptoms or none at all (See my other post about factors that correlate with the severity of viral diseases).

It is not known if the prisoners were pardoned as promised. But it is known that the prison ward doctor who exposed the prisoners to the experiments contracted the disease and died!

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