By Amber Hsiao
Originally published in the2x2project.org
It was wartime in the 1940s. The first peacetime draft in the history of the United States had taken place in 1940. Amid extraordinary patriotism in the United States, often demonstrated by young men enlisting in the military to serve their country, there was scattered opposition to selective service. Indeed, a few hundred men had claimed the right to refuse to perform military service. These men, known as Conscientious Objectors (COs) and self-proclaimed human guinea pigs, served the country in other ways that contributed a great deal to our knowledge of everything from treatment for typhus and hepatitis to acute pneumonia and malaria.
Most of the COs were members of the Historic Peace Churches, including the Brethren, Mennonites, and Friends. While their reasons for refusing to perform military duties varied, most COs had religious objections to war stemming from a pacifist stance. Following World War I, when COs who refused to comply with the Draft Act were brought before a court-martial for sentencing, the peace churches were able to lobby political leaders for a system that allowed for alternative service.
“The Historic Peace Churches wanted to rehabilitate the images of the COs who were seen as cowards to the public at large, unwilling to make a sacrifice to fight abroad. They wanted to show that they were heroic in their own way, but weren’t willing to kill people,” said Sarah Tracy, associate professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma.
The churches’ lobbying paid off, and the Selective Service Act of 1940 included a CO clause that led to the creation of the Civilian Public Service (CPS). When World War II began, roughly 34.5 million men registered for the draft, with about a fifth of 1 percent applying for CO status. Nearly 12,000 of the men who passed the medical exam were part of the CPS. Fifty-eight percent of these men were members of the Historic Peace Churches.
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment
Perhaps one of the most well-known experiments that enrolled COs at the time was the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, a study on the effect of human starvation and re-feeding led by Dr. Ancel Keys, a nutritional physiologist and epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. From a pool of more than 200 men who responded to Keys’ request for volunteers, 36 were invited to participate. The men were put through a battery of physical and mental tests.
“Ultimately this experiment wasn’t just to describe or delineate the symptoms of starvation, but to figure out how to optimally rehabilitate those who starved.”
Other selection criteria included an ability to get along well with others and a genuine interest in helping famine victims improve their nutritional statuses and rehabilitate post-starvation. War-torn countries were facing famine and starvation, and studying starvation in a scientific, systematic way could assist in post-war recovery. Keys sought to answer a number of questions: What is the natural history of starvation? How do people’s bodies and minds respond?
“Famine struck Europe and Asia during war. Many people were put into concentration and work camps, so they needed to figure out how to rehabilitate people quickly before the Marshall Plan could even take effect,” Tracy said. “Ultimately this experiment wasn’t just to describe or delineate the symptoms of starvation, but to figure out how to optimally rehabilitate those who starved.”
Through a year-long study, Dr. Keys first put the men through a three-month standardization control phase with a normal diet to ensure the men were at their normal weight given their height. The next six months came starvation where each man’s caloric intake was cut by roughly half and put on a diet of 1,570 calories per day, on average, so that each man would eventually lose roughly 25 percent of their weight. Finally, there were three months of rehabilitation during which the men were put into various subgroups to test different recovery diets, varying the amount of calories, protein, and vitamins.
“These men were losing weight when they were fed [an average of 1,570 calories],” said Tracy. “By today’s standards, it would be a good weight reduction standard. It gives you a sense of how much more active they were in the 40s.”
A number of findings came out of the study. Many symptoms accompanied starvation, including neurosis and psychological issues. While in the starvation phase, the men lost interest in daily activities of life—even loss of sex drive. The only thing that seemed to interest the men was an obsession with eating. This manifestation of semi-starvation has been noted to be similar to the physical effects of people with eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.
“The experiment defined our understanding of nutrition for the world and government for relief of famine after war,” said Dr. Henry Blackburn, professor emeritus at University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Dr. Blackburn worked with Dr. Keys prior to Keys’ retirement on the Seven Countries Study, which examined risk factors associated with coronary heart disease and stroke.
And the key to a quick rehabilitation?
“They figured out that calories—such a basic fact—was what people needed to be fed,” said Tracy. “Vitamins proved helpful, but the body’s most primary need was simply energy. They had horrible experiments with intravenous and tube feeding, but that wasn’t the way to do it. Giving people food was more important.”
“We couldn’t feed them that few calories and expect them to survive and get better,” Tracy said. “We were giving former Axis powers fewer calories, and more to those in countries that Germany fought against.”
The study concluded in 1945, and an interim report was published nearly five months after the end of the war. While the findings came late to the general public, individuals who were directly supervising nutritional relief efforts in Europe frequented Dr. Keys’ lab on a regular basis to obtain advice.
“There were a whole bunch of confidential [military] reports that were not published nor disseminated publicly that were issued at different junctures during the year in which they conducted the experiment,” said Tracy, who is currently writing a biography on Dr. Keys. “The reports helped people in the Netherlands, France… wherever.”
After the war, many COs also went to Washington to testify to Congress to push them to raise the number of calories apportioned to feeding in Europe, since some were being fed as little as 1,200 calories.
“We couldn’t feed them that few calories and expect them to survive and get better,” Tracy said. “We were giving former Axis powers fewer calories, and more to those in countries that Germany fought against.”
Eventually in 1950, Dr. Keys published the Biology of Human Starvation, a 2-volume work that detailed the effects of famine based on the study. Since the Declaration of Helsinki, such experiments could not possibly be conducted ever again.
“The experiments were completely public, done with all the ethical constraints and standards of sound research at the time,” Dr. Blackburn said. “Issues of informed consent weren’t the same in the 40s and now, and even during war versus peacetime. These men were sacrificing their freedoms to do good for mankind and were eager to contribute to the war effort.”
Edited by Dana March