America's Deep, Dark Secret

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Categories : Bioethics

Editor : MikeGene

published: dimanche 21 janvier 2007 23:24:13

The Fernald School is the oldest institution of its kind in the country. At its peak, some 2,500 people were confined here, most of them children. All of them were called feeble-minded, whether they were or not.

The people who ran Fernald back in the bad, old days are no longer alive, but many of the victims still are — victims like Fred Boyce, who was locked up there for 11 years. He came back to Fernald with Correspondent Bob Simon.

”We thought for a long time that we belonged there, that we were not part of the species. We thought we were some kind of, you know, people that wasn't supposed to be born,” says Boyce.