| By Bob Weaver
With most national surveys indicating as little as 10% surveyed trust Washington to look out for the public's interest and move the country ahead, it could be important to review some forgotten government programs.
At least 230 West Virginians were sterilized in a government eugenics program.
Thirty-three states condoned eugenics, mostly on children, according to a story on West Virginia News by Jack Swint.
The government approved programs had over 65,000 individuals sterilized under compulsory sterilization programs in the US.
Another government approved program did lobotomies on about 50,000 US citizens between the mid-1930s and the 1970s, with some records indicating a few thousand in West Virginia, including a large number at Spencer State Hospital. (See Links)
Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s, with eugenicists believing that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were inherited traits. (There could have been a time when I and hundreds of people I know could have met that criteria)
To eliminate those society ills and improve society's gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be sterilized.
West Virginia's sterilization act reportedly involved patients of state institutions "afflicted with any hereditary form of insanity that is recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy, who are candidates for parole or dismissal."
Also coming to mind, the estimated 220,000 U.S. soldiers who were allegedly exposed to radiation in the 1940s and 1950s, some of them used for testing the effects of radiation during the early development of the atomic bomb.
Another was Operation Whitecoat, a medical research program carried out by the US Army between 1954-1973. The program involved conducting medical research using volunteer enlisted men, all conscientious objectors and many members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. They were subjected to biological weapons, the
stated purpose of the research being to defend troops and civilians.
Read About Eugenics at westvirginianews.blogspot.com
Read About Lobotomies SUNNY CAL JOURNAL - Uncle Harrison's Lobotomy
'ICE-PICK' LOBOTOMIES GIVEN AT SPENCER STATE HOSPITAL - "It Was A Real Grisly Thing," Said Doctor
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