Saul Krugman

 ( 1911 Births ) 

Saul Krugman (April 7, 1911 – October 26, 1995) was a physician, and later pediatrician, whose studies of hepatitis, rubella, and measles resulted in the development of for these debilitating diseases. The results of these studies were acquired through unethical medical practices involving experimentation on disabled children, which came to light during the Willowbrook State School scandal of 1972.

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Early life The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Krugman was born in the Bronx on April 7, 1911. He began his undergraduate studies at Ohio State University in 1929 and, after taking time off following his junior year to earn money so he could complete his studies, graduated from the University of Richmond in 1934.

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Education and career

Krugman began his medical studies at the Medical College of Virginia. After service during World War II as a flight surgeon in the South Pacific, he went on to pursue research at New York University (NYU).

Krugman was the first to distinguish hepatitis A from hepatitis B, and made great strides in describing their different characteristics and behaviors. While examining blood samples from patients with hepatitis at NYU, Krugman discovered that heating blood containing hepatitis B would kill the virus while preserving an antibody response when used as a vaccine. From 1958 to 1964, Krugman conducted human testing and trials with live hepatitis virus.Experiments at the Willowbrook State School "The Lancet" 1971 May 8;1(7706):966-7. After subjects, Krugman and his team would then experiment with developing a vaccine to be used to protect United States military personnel from the chronic and often fatal disease.

Krugman engaged in human experimentation. Under his direction, a number of children with intellectual disabilities were intentionally infected with hepatitis A at the Willowbrook State School. According to the celebrated vaccinologist Maurice Hilleman, "They the were the most unethical medical experiments ever performed on children in the United States."

Offit, Paul A. (2025). 9780061227950, Smithsonian Books/Collins. . ISBN 9780061227950

Krugman was awarded the 1983 Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award. In the words of the Lasker Committee:

"Dr. Krugman’s most far-reaching achievement concerns viral hepatitis. In a long and elegant sequence of studies beginning in the mid-1950s, he proved that “infectious” (type A) hepatitis, transmitted by the fecal-oral route, and the more serious “serum” (type B) hepatitis, transmitted by blood, body secretions, and sexual contact, were caused by two immunologically distinct viruses." These studies were sponsored by the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army and approved by the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene. The ethics of the Willowbrook Studies have been widely debated.Krugman, S. The Willowbrook hepatitis studies revisited: ethical aspects. Reviews of Infectious Diseases. 1986 Jan-Feb;8(1):157-62.

In 1972, Krugman became the president of the American Pediatric Society.

He died on October 26, 1995, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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Human experimentation Between 1963 and 1966, Krugman promised parents that their children would be enrolled in Willowbrook in exchange for signing a consent form for procedures that he claimed were "vaccinations". However, in reality, the procedures involved deliberately infecting children with viral hepatitis by feeding them an extract made from the feces of patients who were infected with the disease.Hammer Breslow, Lauren. "The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act of 2002: The Rise of the Voluntary Incentive Structure and Congressional Refusal to Require Pediatric Testing", Harvard Journal on Legislation, Vol. 40Offit, Paul A. (2007). The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis. Yale University Press. p. 37. .

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See also

• Human experimentation in the United States

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