Nutritional experiments at Kenora residential schools are ‘infuriating’: Grand Chief 0
Treaty 3 Grand Chief Warren White
Using aboriginal students in both of Kenora’s residential schools for human experiments in the 1940s to learn about the affects of nutrition was “beyond cruel, it is unjustifiable, and is a violation of basic human rights,” according to the Treaty Three Grand Council.
The experiments which were performed at both St. Mary’s and Cecillia Jeffery between 1942 and 1952 came to light in a recently published academic article by Guelph University nutritional historian Ian Mosby. Treaty Three Grand Chief Warren White said this is just one more in a long list of injustices perpetrated on the Anishinaabe people by the residential school system.
“To learn now that our community members, our relatives and our friends were deliberately subjugated to experiments as children contributing to untold lifelong pain and suffering, poor health, chronic disease and lower life expectancy is not only heart-breaking, it is infuriating,” he said.
According to Mosby’s research, children at St. Mary’s had the flour in their food replaced with a nutritionally-fortified flour known as “Newfoundland blend,” which at the time was illegal to sell outside of Newfoundland because it violated food additive laws. After years on the flour, many St. Mary’s students began to develop anemia (iron deficiency).
In order to avoid skewing data collected from inspecting the teeth and gums of students, researchers had the schools deny the students dental treatments.