Letters to the Editor
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It could have been spooky
If they had been feeding some of the villagers something that they hypothesized would harm their development. I don't know, trans-fats or something.
But as it was, they were providing some lucky villagers with a leg up, and some just with a free drink. Nobody is worse off than they would have been without the study. Now that the results are known, it might be a little weird to repeat, but for a study to work, you need the control group.
As for why we just get results now when the experiment ended in '77 - they stopped providing shakes in '77, but in order to find out how this early intervention affects develop, you have to wait for the people involved to develop.