CANADA
Toronto Star
From residential schools to forced relocations, Canada’s record on institutional abuses of its aboriginal people is well documented. Despite this, the discovery of papers proving that federal researchers denied nutrition or deliberately starved aboriginal children in the 1940s and ‘50s is both shocking and tragic.
What a terrible burden for the 1,300 (or more) children who were deprived of sustenance and even dental care in secret experiments, all of which came to light in research uncovered by Ian Mosby, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Guelph. It’s a powerful discovery.
These “nutritional experiments” began in 1942 in northern Manitoba and within five years were being conducted on kids in at least six residential schools across the country. As the Canadian Press first reported, native children were used as nutritional guinea pigs after researchers found widespread malnutrition on reserves as the result of the dying fur trade.
Crucially, the experiments were done without obtaining consent from those affected. According to Murray Sinclair, chairman of the Truth and Reconcilation Commission looking into residential school abuses, even at the time that violated accepted scientific standards.
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