{"product_id":"the-normals-laura-stark-9780226855240","title":"The Normals: A People's History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow healthy control subjects in clinical research transformed the practice and labor of science, as told by the Normals themselves.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health were in search of a large, replenishing stream of healthy people to participate in clinical studies. To establish legal sources of test subjects, the NIH signed unprecedented contracts with American colleges, church organizations, and other government agencies, and in the process gave rise to a new type of test subject: the \"normal patient.\" Thousands of them eventually moved into the NIH Clinical Center to live in hospital rooms, eat food prepared in a metabolic kitchen, and follow--or flout--the rules.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Normals\u003c\/i\u003e is a groundbreaking account of the NIH Normal Volunteer Patient Program, which has lasted into the twenty-first century. This program harnessed outside organizations in all areas of postwar American life--colleges and universities, labor unions, civic groups, federal prisons, and churches--to recruit research subjects for human experiments. Drawing on thousands of pages of unearthed government documents, oral histories, and personal materials shared by the patients themselves (collected in a new archive), Laura Stark follows five experiments and the people involved, delving into their biographies, their time at the Clinical Center, and the thorny problem of determining who counts as \"normal.\" The \"Normals\" were not passive objects of study, Stark shows, but active research participants who collaborated with scientists, maintained the laboratories where they served, informed official ethics policies, and bargained to meet their needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy taking seriously the pillow fights and the first kisses, the bible clubs and the movie nights that animated the Clinical Center as much as the medical experiments, \u003ci\u003eThe Normals\u003c\/i\u003e brings to life a surprising true story of the origins of our present-day system of human experiment, one that at once explores what it means to work, to serve, to volunteer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Laura Stark\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226855244\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226855240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/28\/2027\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs","brand":"Laura Stark","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50594510668031,"sku":"9780226855240","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-normals-laura-stark-9780226855240","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}