BBC: U.K. did secret experiments on kids

LONDON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A Scottish professor has confirmed Britain subjected hundreds of orphans and mentally handicapped children to secret medical experiments.

Gordon Stewart of the University of Glasgow confirmed a BBC report set to air Monday, that British and Irish health authorities conducted secret whooping cough vaccine experiments in the 1950s and 1960s, the Times of London reported.

In its "Guinea Pig Kids" documentary, BBC Radio 4 says the children were often vaccinated without parental consent and many records of the trials are gone.

Activists allege there are 1,200 known cases of children brain-damaged by the experimental vaccine, which is now banned.

"There is no doubt that brain damage occurred," said Stewart, was part of a government-appointed investigative team in 1974 that looked at the side effects of the trial injections.

"The severe reactions included convulsions and mental defects. Some of the children would scream for two to three days after their injections. Some were comatose and now, at the age of 40 or 50, brutally defective."

He said the data from the experiments, including adverse reactions, was lost by the Department of Health.