THE CRIME AT HOUSTON---DR. SHELTON’S HYGIENIC REVIEW — MAY, 1955

The scene was a room in Houston, Texas. It was a temporary "clinic" set up for the purpose of experimenting on a great mass of hapless and helpless children. It was but one of eight such "clinics" that had been set up in the city. The room was filled with children and their frightened parents, who had "voluntarily" brought their children for the experiment. The children ranged from toddlers barely past their first birthday to six-year-olds, who brought their "comic" books or listened as their parents told them "children’s stories." In the room where the children were being tortured by needles being pushed into them and through which a serum was inoculated into them, there were cries of pain and fear. Parents of the frightened children attempted to still their fears and stop their cries with "soothing words."
What was it all about? Why were the children being thus tormented? What were they afraid of? Why were they having needles stuck into them? The answer is, they were being used as guinea pigs in a mass experiment conducted by a gang of voodoo priests whom the newspapers referred to as "scientists." Headed by William D. Hammon, a professor of something or other in the University of Pennsylvania, the voodoo practitioners were inoculating the children with a blood fraction which they call gamma globulin and which, they said, contains "disease-fighting anti-bodies." This was being done, not to prevent poliomyelitis, for they acknowledge that the serum will not prevent polio, but in the hope that those children who developed polio subsequent to inoculation, would not become paralyzed. Hammon "stressed the fact that gamma globulin cannot prevent polio," but that he believes, from tests made on monkeys, (I assume that he means the monkeys of the lower order, not the ones that were inoculating the children) it can prevent paralysis.
Thirty-five thousand children were to be used in the test. Half of them were being inoculated with the "gamma globulin," the other half were being inoculated with an "ineffective substance" that resembled gamma globulin. This, said Hammon, is the only way to test the theory that paralysis can be prevented by the blood fraction. A previous test, using 5,768 children of Provo, Utah, made last year, was not on a big enough scale to be "conclusive." A bigger test was needed, and Houston was chosen as the laboratory in which to use the human guinea pigs.
Last year we had a physician here in Texas to inoculate a lot of children with anti-rabies serum on the absurd theory that it would prevent polio. Last year, also, the gamma globulin was tested on a large number of children in a midWestern state. Now comes the news from Sacramento, Calif., dated July 24, 1952 that fifty children in the Sonoma State Home (presumably orphans who have nobody to protect them from the state and the medical gangsters) are being fed a "special kind of chocolate milk containing a virus which "scientists" hope will prevent polio. Frank Tallman, state mental hygiene (?) director, said in a report to Governor Warren (a man who dared to aspire to the presidency) that the milk diet is the key part of an experiment aimed at finding means of preventing polio.
The rascals who are conducting this experiment selected "100 children who were found to have no naturally built immunity to polio." Why do newspapers continue to dignify men of this stripe with the title "scientists"? Why do they not rather expose the scoundrels for what they are—reckless experimenters who toy with human life as though it were the life of a guinea pig?
These are the mass experiments that are being carried out or that have been carried out during the past two years on children in this country that have made the headlines. There is no way to tell how many other such experiments are going on or have been carried out that have been and are being kept secret. The children of America are being freely used as guinea pigs and the parents of America seem to be indifferent to the whole matter. What has become of the sense of responsibility that parents are supposed to feel towards their children? Where is the love that parents are traditionally supposed to have for their children? Is it true that modern American parents would sacrifice their children to a modern Moloch as did the parents of ancient Carthage; or that they would throw their babies in the path of the Juggernaught as did the parents of India? Let no one deny that they will do this, for do we not see them sacrificing their children to the superstitions and hallucinations of medical idiots?
Why was Houston chosen for this mass experiment? It was stated that Houston was picked because of the high rate of polio there, but this may not be the whole truth. It may be that the high rate of polio in Houston was due to the fact that the city had been chosen for the test. Before parents can be induced to submit their children to the dangers of inoculation in this manner, and especially before they can be induced to permit their children to be used for purely experimental purposes, they must first be frightened out of their wits. There is nothing like an epidemic to frighten ignorant people. It is not probable that more than one third of the cases diagnosed as polio in Houston were polio. But this fact is not known to the parents of that city. Parents are as easily frightened by false diagnoses as by correct ones The epidemic at Houston may have been staged because Houston had been secretly picked as the place for the test.
The manner in which Houston parents crowded into the inoculation centers with their children and the readiness with which they submitted their children to the experiment indicates, not alone the abject ignorance of parents, but also the fear that was in them, as the physicians and board of health of that city had built up a synthetic epidemic for that very purpose.
The plan of the experimenters was to inoculate 35,000 children—half of them with gamma globulin, which it was hoped would prevent paralysis; the other half with gelatin, which they referred to as an "ineffective substitute." The children who were to get the "ineffective substitute" were to be "controls." But many frightened parents in Houston refused to wait and see if the experiment was a success. They refuse to take a chance on not getting the gamma globulin for their children. They took their children to private physicians and paid to have them inoculated. Oh, yes, the serum was available and for sale and so were physicians (most physicians, in fact) who will administer it for a fee, even though it is not yet known to have any value. The manufacturers and the physicians are in a hurry to reap their profits, for they know that at the conclusion of the test, they may not be able to sell it even to the most frightened individual.
According to a July 27 report from Houston, but 33,000 children were used in the test. This means that so many of the frightened parents went to private physicians and had their children inoculated with gamma globulin, rather than risk having them get the "ineffective substance," that the experimenters did not get the expected 35,000 children out to the experimental centers. The frightened parents, thinking, in their ignorance, that the serum would prevent the disease, or at least prevent paralysis, and knowing that if they took their children to the experimental clinics they stood but a fifty-fifty chance of getting gamma globulin, paid for the inoculations and thus made certain that their children did not receive a shot of gelatin. Thus the expected 35,000 guinea pigs did not materialize.
Not all of the parents of Houston were as "scientifically" minded as Robert N. Smaistria, of that city, who said: "I’m willing to do anything to help prevent paralysis—in my children and in all children." Actually, he was a very frightened man, who did not know whether his child received the supposed protective serum, or the "ineffective" substitute—the "harmless gelatin." It is never harmless to inject any foreign substance into the blood stream, and gelatin, a foreign protein, is certainly not harmless, but the use of the phrase "harmless gelatin" in with the gamma globulin, carries the implication that gamma globulin i less. In the same way, the statement that half of the children used as guinea pigs would receive the serum and the other half would receive a substance implied that the serum is effective. Indeed, the effectiveness is taken for granted, even before it is tested.
By June 30 thousands of parents in Houston were demanding the serum for their children, but the experimenters could give them no guarantee that their children would receive the serum and not the gelatin, so the parents went to their
family physicians, who, always willing to oblige, for a fee, gave them the shots. They reaped a financial harvest while the publicity was flooding the papers, even though they were well aware that there is not a shred of evidence to lead to the belief that the G.G. serum will prevent polio.
Hammond complained that the inoculating of children by private physicians was reducing the number of children available for "field study." But parents were taking no "chances." If they took their children to the Hammond clinics, they ran a fifty-fifty chance of getting the "ineffective substance," and they wanted their children to get the "protective" gamma globulin. Hammond was interested in a "controlled experiment," parents were interested in saving their children from the jaws of the dreaded monster, polio. There is also the possibility that parents whose children were taken to the clinic, fearing that their little guinea pigs got the gelatin instead of the globulin, might take them to physicians and have them given the "real medicine," in which case they would have no value to the "field study." Therefore, parents who submitted their children to the experiment were urged not to go to physicians and have them given gamma globulin. The experimenters said in effect to them: "We believe that the gamma globulin will prevent the paralysis of polio and we know that the gelatin will not, but we want you to take a chance with your child. Don’t give him gamma globulin; be content with the gelatin. Don’t spoil our test for the sake of your child."
On hand at the opening of the ten days’ orgy of inoculating was another voodoo priest, the Rev. Thomas Summers, rector of the St. John the Divine Episcopal Church and president of the Houston Council of Churches, who "expressed the hope of each of the silent, tense parents" when he said: "We pray, oh God, that the scourge of polio may be removed." That should have settled it! When two of the three modern branches of shamanism combine to make war upon the demon of polio, this demon should seek the tall timber.
I would call the attention of those of my readers who may have been so misled in the past as to contribute to the "March of Dimes" fund that, this orgy of human vivisection was financed by a grant of $500,000 supplied by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. From financing experiments on rats and monkeys, this Foundation has turned to financing experiments on children. At least they have to pay for the rats and monkeys, whereas, they can frighten parents -into contributing their children without cost.
Blood donors will be happy to learn that their donations are being used for many worthy purposes. Hammond stated that the gamma globulin used in the polio experiment is the same as that used in measles and that it is obtained from blood collected by the American Red Cross from donors all over the country. Thus Clara Barton’s organization (one she repented ever having formed) is revealed as being in all ways a stooge of organized voodooism. It serves its adopted master well, the very thing that caused Clara Barton to express the wish that she had never founded the organization. For Clara Barton was a Hygienist.
The gamma globulin is referred to by Hammond and the newspapers as "medicine," that is, a "healing agent." Not only it is being used as a "prophylactic agent" (a preventive), and this would not be a "healing agent," but there is absolutely no evidence so far that it has either preventive or healing powers. Indeed, there is no such thing as a healing agent. Drugs, serums, vaccines, heal nothing. Medical men are not healers, hence they are wrongly branded when they are called medical men. There are no medicines and the practice of "medicine" is not the practice of a "healing art." They have surrounded themselves and then practices with a terminology that is utterly false.
On July 27 it was stated in a news report from Houston that some of the children used in the test had already developed polio, but it was not known whether these children had received gamma globulin or the "ineffective gelatin." To make the test more sensational the man from the Pittsburgh University who directed the test in Houston sent all records to New York City and had them locked in a safe where they will remain until January 1953. So, it will not be known until these records are examined some time in 1953, how many of each group of children developed polio. "The results of the test won’t be known for months, probably early in 1953," so "a team of experts (ex-spurts) will remain here (in Houston) through the polio season into the fall to check on children inoculated."
If it is decided to make the serum "effective" this can be done by diagnosis and statistics. All that will be needed will be to diagnose as something else large numbers of cases that are now diagnosed as polio. In those children receiving the "non-effective" substance the same cases may still be diagnosed polio. This is the way in which smallpox vaccination is upheld. If the patient has been vaccinated it is chickenpox, if he has not been vaccinated it is smallpox.
Or, it is always possible, to assume, as in the case of smallpox vaccination, where polio does follow the inoculation, that the inoculation was not "successful." It can also be claimed, as indeed, it is already hinted, that if the new serum does not prevent polio it at least makes the disease lighter. The same claim is made for smallpox vaccine, it lessens the severity of the "attack."
It will also be possible, as in the case of typhoid and "paratyphoid," to discover that there are two or more polio viruses and that the serum protects from only one of these. Indeed, the medical classifiers have already determined that there are "three types of polio."
How long will the alleged "immunity" last? Will the children have to be inoculated each summer or twice a year? How often will they have to be given "booster shots?" One physician says the "shots" must be repeated every four to six weeks.
Which children among those that are inoculated with the serum would have had polio if they had not been inoculated? What effect will the injection of the "non-effective" substance have in producing polio in the children that receive it? Statistics based on such uncertainties must be equally as uncertain.
A tragic situation grew out of all the publicity the gamma globulin experiment in Houston received. The ignorant and frightened public began to demand the inoculation of their children with the serum without waiting to see how the Houston experiment came out. Here in the city of San Antonio, nearly two hundred miles from the scene of the Houston crime, the physicians were deluged with demands for the gamma globulin. Although many of them were honest enough to warn parents that it was but "a shot in the dark," and that they were "buying a pig in a poke," the frightened parents demanded the inoculation for their children anyway. Told that there is not, as yet, any proof that the gamma globulin will prevent polio, they insisted on having it for their children.
One pediatrician who was getting an average of ten calls a day for the inoculation said that, parents "seem to think it would ease their conscience should their children get polio. They can at least say they have done what they could." The abject ignorance that this statement reflects is not altogether the fault of the parents. These parents have trusted their medical advisers and have been mis-educated by them. The fact is that, several local physicians were giving their own children gamma globulin with the same idea in mind. They are as ignorant as lay parents. One pediatrician recommended "shots" only for those children who were "exposed" to polio. If the ignoramus ever stops long enough to ask the simple question: How was the first case of polio "exposed" to polio, he’ll grab his hollow needle and start inoculating every child in sight.
One physician who estimated that he was inoculating six children daily, asked: "When mothers come in and ask for it for their children, what else can we do but give it to them?" Behold the degradation of "medical science!" It is reduced to the base position of a mere panderer to the ignorant wishes of the frightened layman. The physician is no longer the trusted and expert adviser of the people— he merely keeps a supply of convalescent juice on hand and sells it to whomsoever comes to buy, just as the dry goods salesman sells any kind of cloth his customers want. The mother prescribes, the physician merely carries out her orders.
What can they do? They have frightened the wits out of the people and they have paraded their serum in the public press in the most dramatic manner for days and weeks. They created the demand and then, with an air of hurt innocence, they ask: "What can we do when the people ask for it?" I could tell the damned rascals what they could do, but I have no idea that there is enough honesty and self respect left in the profession to cause them to do it. This thing is greatly increasing their incomes and they are not going to quit it.
It is significant that the drug stores were well supplied with sufficient gamma globulin to meet the demand. Small vials containing two cc of the serum retailed at $6.75 a vial and the sales were described as "heavy." The manufacturers and sellers of the voodoo concoction were ready and willing to cash in on the publicity before the ultimate failure of the experiment becomes known. Every physician in the country is well aware that the gamma globulin will not prevent polio. But they justify their pumping of this soup into the bodies of children on the grounds, to quote the words of one San Antonio pediatrician, that "We don’t want to support any useless means and we don’t want to overlook the possibilities of its success."
The gamma globulin is not only expensive, but it is given according to the weight of the child. One pediatrician explained that the "cost for a child who weighed 100 pounds would almost be prohibitive and the shot would have to be renewed in three or four weeks." Even before the results of the experiment are known, these men already know how often they must renew the "immunization." What a lucrative source of income! Give every child expensive shots of gamma globulin every three or four weeks throughout the summer months, nation wide, and the physicians can forget about the remainder of their practices. Who would want to fritter away his time looking after typhoid cases or operating for appendicitis or bothering about oil wells, when fifty to a hundred children a day come to the office to get gamma globulin shots?
Fear was expressed that the gamma globulin supply might too soon be exhausted but the manufacturing drug houses and the local wholesale distributing firms, knowing what the publicity would do for business, had provided against this contingency in advance. They had a plentiful supply on hand in San Antonio. On July 4, a spokesman for the wholesale drug firms of San Antonio stated to the press that these firms had plenty in stock. The demand for it had increased four to five times since the outbreak of the Houston crime, but there was no shortage. Such is the foresight of good business men.

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