A 1969 experiment in Coventry saw 21 Indian women fed chapatis baked with radioactive isotopes, without their consent. Revisiting the history behind this unsettling study explores broader issues of trust, consent, and medical ethics within vulnerable communities.
Brownlow did not think the experiment in Coventry was the worst he’d found. In Wales, he had tracked down a couple who had been unable to dress their baby for her funeral because her leg bones had been removed for Project Sunshine. By contrast, the chapati experiment had a clear, benign medical aim: studying how to reduce cases of anaemia. But the way it was conducted fit with what Brownlow was finding elsewhere. “This was a vulnerable population – in this case, a minority community which had difficulties with English – with a layer of people doing the consenting for them,” he told me.
The report said the MRC no longer had a list of participants in the study, so they could only speak to “a small number” who came forward as a result of the documentary. It’s not clear what efforts were made to reach out to these women, but no one contacted Kalbir’s mother, who was unaware of this local investigation. The only mention of the women’s perspectives is the single sentence saying two of them did not recall giving consent.