If everyone thought it was harmless, why wasn't it conducted on college students, the usual specimen of choice for harmless experiments? Was it just a coincidence that the researchers decided to experiment on the most powerless and defenseless subjects they could find?
This is MIT, not Mengele's Auschwitz. Radioactive tracers are injected into the blood streams of millions of people every year for PET and CT scans, of all ages, which is far more harmful than radioactive tracers in food.
That doesn't answer the question at all. It kinda just assumes that the question isn't really interesting because of course MIT isn't like Auschwitz, even in the instance where it kinda is.
You do know how scientific studies are run, right? I can't speak to why they chose to do the tests on developmentally disabled children (possibly wanted to test effects of radiation on growing metabolism or something, without risk of stunting the development of normal children, which is still unethical) but all of your suggestions sound like the perfect storm of uncontrollable factors and useless data.
As an MIT alum who (1) has run experiments, (2) has had experiments performed on me by MIT researchers and (3) has actually studied this particular case in a Scientific Ethics class at MIT, I know a lot of things. Plus my brother is developmentally disabled.
The "scientists" in question didn't think anyone would consent so they chose to experiment on people without seeking consent. They knew that normal adults would ask too many questions so they used cognitively impaired children. They did this because they didn't think of developmentally disabled people as fully human.
Look, MIT has already decided that this was a horribly unethical thing to do. Its professors practically scream that in classes. And it paid off the victims with $2million. MIT thinks this is unethical. So why are you disagreeing?
All three (four?) of your points are irrelevant since you literally suggested using publicly accessible breakfast cereal as a replacement for the equivalent of a controlled experiment.
Using developmentally disabled children for research BECAUSE they can't consent is a horrendous breach of basic human rights and not once did I disagree with you that it was unethical. I appreciate your argument but so far I've only been going after your rhetoric, which could be a lot more informative since you claim you studied this case.
Probably they wanted subjects who would uncomplainingly eat a boring experimental diet.
And suggesting that MIT students be used for radioactivity experiments is silly: they would eat their own radioactive stuff to screw with the scientists.