The studies took place at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York, which was a state run institutional facility for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In the 1950s and 1960s, Willowbrook had a hepatitis outbreak due to poor hygiene and overcrowded conditions. Nearly all of the admitted children had hepatitis. In 1955, two researchers, Saul Krugman and Robert Ward, were brought in as consultants to study and try to control the hepatitis problem at Willowbrook. In 1956, Saul and Robert proposed the idea of intentionally exposing children to the virus. They assumed that the children were already at high risk of infection, that hepatitis was generally mild in children, and that intentional infection could potentially lead to immunity (Krugman & Giles, 1970).…show more content… Between 1956 and 1970, after parental consent, the researchers purposely infected nearly 700 children through injections or exposing them to the virus. After all of those trials, they figured out how hepatitis works, how it spreads, and whether they could stop it. They monitored the disease’s progression and tried giving kids gamma globulin to prevent it, and also collected blood samples as well. They discovered various types of hepatitis viruses, showed that hepatitis B immune globulin could help, which led to making a vaccine for hepatitis B (Krugman et al, 1971). Not many people knew about this study, but later on, it became controversial. People argued that it was wrong to purposely infect kids, which I totally agree with. Even though the research helped us understand hepatitis better and led to important medical breakthroughs, it also raised big ethical
