The secret bread tests: selective primary health care or experimentation on human-beings?

Abstract

This is a case history which describes an attempt to fortify the bread of Australian Aborigines in an isolated area of New South Wales. The medically successful intervention was accomplished by the publication of scientific enquiry and by attention to the culture of Aborigines. Paradoxically the long-term failure of the project was also due to the power of the written word and the neglect of the culture of the more densely populated and politically dominant white community. The need for doctors to be aware of the different approaches of primary health care and selective primary health care is stressed so that a general practitioner who provides health care for minority groups of the Fourth World can better define his role and relevance.