Native people in Canada were used for hunger experiments during the 1940s and 1950s, according to a new study.

Historian Ian Mosby said the experiments were conducted with the approval of the Canadian government. It started with adults on reserves in Manitoba and was later expanded to include children at six residential schools throughout the country.

"In the 1940s, there were a lot of questions about what are human requirements for vitamins," Mosby said on CBC Radio program As It Happens. "Malnourished aboriginal people became viewed as possible means of testing these theories."

Mobsy said leading nutrition researchers withheld vitamins from Native adult subjects. Some 300 adults were part of the experiment.

At the residential schools, Native children were given limited milk rations and were given food products that weren't legal in Canada. Dental services were denied during the team, Mosby said.

The study appears in the May 2013 issue of the Social history journal.

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Hungry aboriginal people used in bureaucrats' experiments (CP 7/17)