poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
May. 5th, 2005 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaA button I picked up this weekend sums it up nicely: Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.
I can't think of a better way in which this has been demonstrated than the use of poor people as unwitting subjects in medical experiments.
The most recent example is the use of foster children (without their consent or knowledge) in experiments on AIDS medicines.
It would be horrible enough if this were an isolated case. But no -- we also have:
Where's the outrage over this? Where's the outrage over Bhopal and agent orange and lead in inner city soil? High profile cases of animal abuse get more outrage.
Here's where I think the outrage went: I think that at some point, each of us recognized (on a non-conscious level) the evil and dehumanizing nature of the society in which we live, realized there was little we could do about it, and became numb to it. We came to recognize the sublimated cannibalism of social stratification and understood that it was eat or be eaten. The media report on a thousand ways in which the poor and disadvantaged are preyed upon and we turn a blind eye, because we know (again, on an unconscious level) that our gratification comes from the teats of Empire.
I can't think of a better way in which this has been demonstrated than the use of poor people as unwitting subjects in medical experiments.
The most recent example is the use of foster children (without their consent or knowledge) in experiments on AIDS medicines.
Government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found.
The research funded by the National Institutes of Health spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990s as foster care agencies sought treatments for their HIV-infected children that weren't yet available in the marketplace.
... Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.
In one study, researchers reported a "disturbing" higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.
It would be horrible enough if this were an isolated case. But no -- we also have:
- The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, wherein the US Public Health Service allowed almost 400 black men to die slowly of syphilis while monitoring for years the effects of the disease on their bodies.
- Several experiments on soldiers (the "Atomic Veterans") and black people to examine the long-term effects of radiation exposure.
- In 1966 researchers from Fort Detrick conducted experiments on the spread of airborne bacteria in the subways of New York and in other places.
- In the early 1990's, several public health departments pushed Norplant -- birth control implants -- on their patients, especially poor women of color. Many of the women who had severe problems with Norplant had a great deal of trouble having it removed. Some judges even began ordering women to have Norplant inserted -- even after it became obvious that Norplant was a public health menace.
- And there are many more examples.
Where's the outrage over this? Where's the outrage over Bhopal and agent orange and lead in inner city soil? High profile cases of animal abuse get more outrage.
Here's where I think the outrage went: I think that at some point, each of us recognized (on a non-conscious level) the evil and dehumanizing nature of the society in which we live, realized there was little we could do about it, and became numb to it. We came to recognize the sublimated cannibalism of social stratification and understood that it was eat or be eaten. The media report on a thousand ways in which the poor and disadvantaged are preyed upon and we turn a blind eye, because we know (again, on an unconscious level) that our gratification comes from the teats of Empire.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 05:54 pm (UTC)It is similar to the statement about how so long as gay people are discriminated against, no straight person is free - because the possibility always exists the straight person will be perceived to be gay, and they don't want to be treated badly, so they must avoid all behaviors seen as "gay" in order to avoid discrimination.
You may have been middle class your entire life, but somewhere in your mind, you notice the increasing numbers of homeless on the street. You read about things done to the poor. You try to consciously build up myths about them - "Oh, they are poor just because they are lazy/mentally ill - I am mentally strong and hard working, so that will never happen to me." If you convince yourself poor people are different from you somehow, that they must be complicit in their poverty, it is less frightening. But there is still a subtle, unspoken fear of poverty built into many decisions. Why must one go to college, study hard, not take risks, not speak up when being maltreated at work, avoid decorating ones body in an alternatve fashion (no visible tattoos or piercings), not partake of any substances which the government has forbidden you? To get a high paying job, to keep a high paying job, SO YOU WON'T END UP BEING POOR. This is the unspoken end of many decisions people make. They strive to look "normal" and "presentable" and behave "appropriately" because to do otherwise is to be a dissident and to risk one's economic status, and everything that happens to the poor is an object lesson to you about what can happen to you if you do not toe that line.