Donate SIGN UP

Files Reveal Approved School Drug Trial Plans In 1960S

Avatar Image
mikey4444 | 08:32 Mon 22nd Aug 2016 | News
16 Answers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37149029

I think this is shocking....how many more cases like this are waiting to be discovered ?
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 16 of 16rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by mikey4444. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
I am only shocked that casual abuse of innocents by governments is not uncovered more frequently, given the casual abuse that is reported Guantanamo Bay?
I would guess there are quite a few cases like this waiting to be revealed. Whether or not they are ever revealed will depend upon how much the government wishes to suppress them.
The sixties was an era when enormous strides forward were being made in the development of psychotropic drugs, but the idea that everyone had equal rights, whatever their age or status, had not yet kicked in.
Psychiatric hospitals, detainment centres, children's homes and other insitutions which housed powerless and often vulnerable individuals were seen as opportunities for research which could not, because of the risk of public outcry, be carried out on the general public. Such research was subject to little or no ethical scrutiny.
I believe there is still much to be revealed. Whether it ever will be revealed is debatable.
The problem with all these 'revelations' is that people will apply todays understanding and ethics to 50 years ago.

We, the West, have moved on greatly in that time and opinions and attitudes have changed too so it really is difficult to be objective to your post Mickey.
I agree that attitudes and opinions have changed, and such institutional abuse is less likely to occur today. But some of the actions taken four or five decades ago actually ruined lives.
Opinions may have changed, but these lives remain ruined, with the important factor being that those who suffered this appalling treatment are still alive and still suffering.
The change in attitudes and opinions means that such abuse hopefully cannot happen again, but the shift in attitude should also bring an acknowledgement of responsibility by those who were in power at the time.
Easy to sit back in 2016 and castigate the practices of 50 years ago.

“In a document dating from late 1967, Dr JR Hawkings, a psychiatrist attached to Richmond Hill, wrote to the Home Office asking permission to conduct a drug trial on boys who were "impulsive, explosive, irritable, restless and aggressive".”

These “children” were males aged 15 plus. They had been sent to “approved schools” because of their uncontrollable behaviour. Faced with a building full of such males who were "impulsive, explosive, irritable, restless and aggressive" drastic measures were needed. They did not have the benefit of armies of social workers, psychiatrists, do-gooders and the like all trying to excuse their behaviour. Their brief was to contain the miscreants and keep to a minimum any damage they might inflict on themselves and, more importantly, others around them.

Today such “children” would be referred by the courts to the Youth Offending Teams that proliferate across the land. They might be “asked” to attend a special “education” establishment which is nothing of the sort but merely a location where they might be confined for an hour or two now and then.

This would ensure their smooth and uninterrupted transition from the so-called Youth Justice System to the adult version.
Question Author
NJ...whether these boys should have been in an Approved School is not the point.

I suspect that they probably were ! But to subject them to a drugs trial, without permission from them or their families was and is wrong, whether it was 50 years ago or today. No one knows what the long term effect of using such powerful drugs on people of that age was and is, and I suspect that no effort was made to follow them into their adult lives.

But when you consider that orphans were still being forcibly sent to the Colonies as late as the late 60's, for purely economic reasons, I suppose a few dozen children being force-fed powerful, anti-psychotic drugs doesn't really matter.
Whilst I agree that the practice was shocking, the fact it happened then doesn't shock me as much as it should.
yMF - in an amazing bout of temporary sanity - has got it
we shouldnt be judging according to 2016 criteria

in the sixties the local doctor attending an approved school wouldnt have dreamt of taking consent from the child. - the age of majority wasnt reduced until 1969. consent came from .... whoever was in statu pupillaris -so Dr Hawker was acting appropriately according to the then rules.

in an adult prison, you ccould not administer any medication to a prisoner without the consent of a judge.... and the result was the prisons were full of unmedicated schozophrenics who were as mad as hell ....

am I really the only person to remember what it was like in the Good Old days?

presumably the trial was abandoned as it .... didnt work.
o god dammit
the boys were in statu pupillari
and the authorities were in loco parentis
the relevant legislation was the Children and Young Persons Act 1933
sozza - it was all such a long time ago....
" I suppose a few dozen children being force-fed powerful, anti-psychotic drugs doesn't really matter. "

They were not "powerful anti-psychotic drugs" Mikey. They were anti-convulsive drugs widely used to treat epilepsy. All they wanted to do was calm the little beggars down a bit. Different times, different times.
-- answer removed --
sorry boys
if it was haloperidol - it has anti psychotic actions

and just in case you wondering if a drug can have more than one action or even tweak more than one receptor - the answer is yes
chlorpromazine was a marketed as Largactil because it had a Large number of Actions ... ( around ten )
Question Author
NJ....here is the Wiki entry for Haloperidol ::::

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haloperidol

Plenty of nasty side effects. I am not sure why you are trying to defend the use of this drug ?
This happened in the 1920’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment

and ethical rules weren’t formulated till the 70’s
-- answer removed --
I’m not defending the use of the drug, Mikey. I’m simply pointing out that it was 50 years ago and attitudes and practices change. Witches used to be burnt at the stake, people used to be hanged for theft of a sheep, homosexuals used to be locked up for being gay and disruptive uncontrollable children used to be drugged. We don’t do any of that any more but at the time none of those practices was deemed outrageous. Now we do.

1 to 16 of 16rss feed

Do you know the answer?

Files Reveal Approved School Drug Trial Plans In 1960S

Answer Question >>

Related Questions

Sorry, we can't find any related questions. Try using the search bar at the top of the page to search for some keywords, or choose a topic and submit your own question.