I'm delighted to be back on the blog to highlight this amazing non-fiction book by Vicki Wittenstein, FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND. It's a book that's scary, enlightening, and rich with detail. Here's Vicki:
Congratulations
on the publication of FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND? Please give us a brief
description of the book.
Thanks, Janet. Writing
the book was a difficult and often emotional experience, and I’m thrilled that
so many people are interested in the topic. The book traces the history of human
medical experimentation from ancient times to the present through some of the greatest
medical advances—but also its most horrifying medical atrocities. Doctors performed thousands of experiments on
orphans, prisoners, the mentally ill, and others with little power or voice,
without consent. The subjects often suffered excruciating pain and humiliation,
and some even died. And, as horrible as these experiments were, they were not
comparable to the Nazi doctors’ torture and inhumane experimentation of concentration
camp victims during World War II. Despite the laws and regulations in place
today, problems continue with clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry,
genetic therapies, stem cell research, and DNA sequencing. The book raises many
ethical questions, but primarily asks the reader how to fairly balance the
rights of the individual versus the need for medical advancement. What price
should we pay for medical knowledge and how can we learn from our mistakes in
the past?
I was pretty
horrified as I read, learning about the number of experiments in which the
subjects were uninformed. Was this a surprise to you as you did your research?
Absolutely. The
U.S. government’s secret radiation experiments during the Cold War shocked me. I
kept imagining how I would feel if I had been one of the 18 random hospital
patients that doctors secretly injected with plutonium, or one of the 829
pregnant women at a Vanderbilt University clinic who drank a supposedly healthy
drink doctors laced with radiation.
How much were
you able to use primary sources? Did you meet many of the subjects and/or
clinicians?
I used many primary
sources, including articles written by a noted antivivisectionist in the early
1900s, material from the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum, the final
report on human radiation experiments from the U.S. Department of Energy hearings,
newspaper clippings about various experiments, and the laws and regulations
promulgated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Office for Human
Research Protection (OHRP). I also interviewed several experts and bioethicists
in the field, including Jerry Menikoff, M.D., Director of the OHRP.
One of the most
difficult interviews was with Eva Mozes Kor, a twin and survivor of Dr. Joseph
Mengele’s experiments on twins at Auschwitz. I was nervous. I had never spoken
to a Holocaust survivor before, let alone someone who had been a victim of
brutal experimentation. But Eva quickly put me at ease. Her story of survival
is remarkable, and her honest voice provided an authentic way for me to discuss
painful and inhumane experiments with young adults.
I also spoke to
Joshua Shaw, the brother of Simeon Shaw, a four-year-old boy who was flown to
the U.S. from Australia for treatment, but instead was injected with plutonium.
Joshua Shaw told me that his family never recovered from what happened to
Simeon.
It’s clear that
without some of these experiments we would not have made medical advancements,
and you clearly felt torn at times between what is ethical and what is
beneficial. Can you discuss?
I think people
are uncomfortable with human medical experimentation. In general, we don’t like
the idea of using people as guinea pigs. Yet, without a doubt, new medical
discoveries and technologies require human experimentation. Although laws and
regulations now govern appropriate human experimentation and the horrifying
examples from the past would not occur today, violations still occur and people
are injured. The difficult challenge lies in balancing the individual’s risk of
injury with the needs of society.
Do you feel
there is a line that should not be crossed, regardless of the results?
Definitely. The
Common Law mandates three ethical principles:
respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. These standards basically
mean that all subjects must give voluntary and informed consent; the harm to
subjects must be limited; and subjects must represent a diverse group of
people, regardless of race, economic class and ethnicity. Every researcher must
strive to follow these laws.
I think we must
never let the ends (scientific advancement) justify the means. As Eva Kor wrote
in a personal account of the Nazi experiments, “The scientists of the world
must remember that the research is being done for the sake of mankind and not
for the sake of science: scientists must never detach themselves from the
humans they serve.”
Much of this is
also the domain of science fiction and horror. I’m playing with that kind of
scenario now in a work in progress. Can you talk to fiction writers about
addressing these issues?
When you write
about horror, whether truth or fiction, a close first person account can help draw
the reader into your story. The brutal facts and emotions speak for themselves,
and there isn’t much need for descriptive details. It’s ‘show don’t tell’ with
a chilling and creepy effect. Good luck on your project!
Thanks so much!
Thanks for
hosting me, and for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts.
Vogler is renowned as the man who brought to the writing
world the mythic structure identified by Joseph Campbell in Vogler’s fabulous
book The Writer’s Journey. Bell, in addition to being an award-winning fiction
author, is also author of a couple of my staples, Plot & Structure, and
Conflict & Suspense. Maass, a high-powered agent, has written what I
consider to be the best revision guide on the market, Writing the Breakout
Novel Workbook, plus a couple of other great craft books, The Fire in Fiction
and Writing 21st Century Fiction..jpeg)
I felt as if I’d ascended Mount Olympus. (I confess to having a fangirl moment meeting the very friendly and warm Vogler, whose book was the first I read when I began to write. And, by the way, all three of these guys were friendly and warm and totally accessible.)
It would be impossible for me to distill what I heard: I
took forty-two pages of notes. I can only encourage you to check the schedule
for a future workshop by one or all of these guys. The StoryMasters Workshop was sponsored through Free Expressions, and they host a number of workshops and intensives. 
