Harper must address decades-old nutritional tests on aboriginals

Harper must address decades-old nutritional tests on aboriginals: Atleo

The head of the Assembly of First Nations is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to make things right and improve funding for aboriginal child welfare in the wake of shocking revelations about nutritional experiments done on hungry children several decades ago.

Shawn Atleo says the federal government needs to work with First Nations to address what was done in the past and help ensure that aboriginal families today have access to healthy food.

Recently published research by food historian Ian Mosby revealed that Canadian government researchers used hungry aboriginal children and adults in nutritional experiments in the 1940s and 1950s.

Starving people and kids became unwitting subjects in tests involving vitamins, minerals and caloric intakes. Nutritional supplements were given to some, but not to others to see how a starvation diet affects the body. Milk rations were kept low at one residential school and dental work was withheld from some children to determine the study’s effects on gums and teeth.

“Our children were literally lab rats for the most unconscionable, horrific testing,” Atleo said, adding that his own father was among the “lab rats” at a residential school in British Columbia.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/harper-must-address-decades-old-nutritional-tests-on-aboriginals-atleo-1.1371153