Toxic Exposures tells the shocking story of how the United States and its allies intentionally subjected thousands of their own servicemen to mustard gas as part of their preparation for chemical warfare. Drawing from once-classified government records, military reports, scientists’ papers, and veterans’ testimony, Susan L. Smith assesses the poisonous legacies of these experiments, including scientific racism and environmental degradation. In addition, she reveals their surprising impact on the origins of chemotherapy as cancer treatment and the development of veterans’ rights movements.
Toxic Exposures tells the shocking story of how the United States and its allies intentionally subjected thousands of their own servicemen to mustard gas as part of their preparation for chemical warfare. Drawing from once-classified government records, military reports, scientists’ papers, and veterans’ testimony, Susan L. Smith assesses the poisonous legacies of these experiments, including scientific racism and environmental degradation. In addition, she reveals their surprising impact on the origins of chemotherapy as cancer treatment and the development of veterans’ rights movements.
SUSAN L. SMITH is a professor of history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She is the author of Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women’s Health Activism in America, 1890–1950 and Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health Politics, 1880–1950.
Inhaltsangabe
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Health and War Beyond the Battlefield
Part I: Preparation for Chemical Warfare
1. Wounding Men to Learn: Soldiers as Human Subjects
2. Race Studies and the Science of War
Part II: Toxic Legacies of War
3. Mustard Gas in the Sea Around Us
4. A Wartime Story: Mustard Agents and Cancer Chemotherapy