Abstract

Beat the Devil

Few charges are more vivid, at least to the poor mothers involved, than the possibility that their children are the objects of medical experimentation. It's the sort of charge that ultimately fired the suspicion among some African American that the AIDS epidemic had in origin been a campaign to wipe them out. The welfare bill signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton and forgiven by the liberals can be seen as an experiment in trying to kill off the poor by any means necessary. The statistical table of U.S. Centers for Disease Control for 1993 lists infant deaths, mortality rates and percentage change from the previous year. First in ranking for less-than-1-year-old children of African American mothers is "Disorders relating to short gestation and unspecified low birthweight."