“Like We’re Livestock”: Post-Truth and Non-consensual Experimentation in the Carceral Context
Published online on April 22, 2026
Abstract
{"p"=>"This article focuses on the implications of a recent court case in Arkansas, Floreal-Wooten et al. v. Helder et al. The suit was filed in early 2022 after people incarcerated in the Washington County Detention Center were, unbeknownst to them, given large doses of the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin to treat their COVID-19 infections. I situate this case within a historical trajectory in which incarcerated people have often been conceptualized as ideal subjects for experimentation and theorize how state-sanctioned experimental violence manifests in the post-truth era. Drawing on a case study approach involving a close reading of court filings and media coverage, I argue that the post-truth moment can enable informal experimentation with limited accountability. The case highlights how broader logics of carceral extraction, combined with specific legal standards such as qualified immunity, obscure accountability. In doing so, the article shows how post-truth reconfigures the relationship between knowledge, power, and history, structuring the repetition of medical violence under novel epistemological conditions."}