The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep
Juliet Butler
Book Human Subjects Research, Twin Studies
A fictionalized story of two real sisters sheds light on the darker side of human research
In 1959, Tatiana Alexeyeva, a Soviet physiologist, declared conjoined twins to be “objects of great scientific interest. A most remarkable human experiment created by nature.” The twins she would go on to describe were Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, born in Moscow in January 1950. Alexeyeva’s colleagues had assumed care of the girls shortly after their…