For those who missed it yesterday, one of our recent PhD graduates, Ian Mosby, has been featured in newspaper, radio, and television stories across the country regarding his recently published article in Histoire Sociale/Social History, “Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942-1952.” The full article is available here (with your York login):
This paper originated from some documents Ian found at Library and Archives Canada while working on his dissertation. He discovered evidence of a little-known federal government program of nutritional experiments on starving Aboriginal people. Nutrition scientists conducted a series of experiments on malnourished Aboriginal children and adults for a period between 1942 and 1952. The federal government did not seek informed consent from the more than 1,000 resident school children from provinces across the country who were unwittingly included in this biomedical research.
Ian’s research has spread throughout dozens of different media outlets after news of the publication was posted on Twitter. Here are links to a few samples:
- Cover story on today’s Toronto Star
- Globe and Mail
- Vancouver Sun
- Ian’s interview on CBC As It Happens
- AFN Grand Chief Shawn Atleo’s and Manitoba Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Eric Robison’s remarks on Ian’s research on CTV News:
The Assembly of First Nations is meeting today in Whitehorse and Grand Chief Shawn Atleo is drafting an emergency resolution calling upon the federal government to respond to the findings in Ian’s research article.
Another recent York PhD graduate and post-doctoral fellow, Jim Clifford, pressed University of Toronto Press Journals to release the article as an open access publication. The full article will be freely available to the public later tonight:
http://storify.com/AndrewCooper/twitter-user-inspires-journal-to-open-access
This is an incredible example of the significance of such historical research and the importance of preserving and maintaining a comprehensive archival record at LAC. I thought I would share this with everyone else and thank Ian for bringing light to this troubling history.