On the morning of Tuesday, March 6th, 1962, Binghamton General Hospital felt like any other maternity ward in America. Dozens of newborns lined up behind glass. Nurses moving quickly. Parents resting upstairs, believing their babies were safe in the nursery.

It was admittedly busy, but nothing about that morning suggested that anything was amiss.

The earliest signs were subtle. A baby refusing a bottle. Another on the pediatrics floor crying inconsolably. One mother insisted something was off while trying to bottle feed, only to be told her daughter was just “fussy.” A nurse noticed the whole floor seemed to be fussy, fickle eaters.

By Friday, the maternity ward would completely erupt into crisis. Babies would begin vomiting, seizing and slipping away faster than staff could chart their symptoms. The nurses found in the staff office, breaking down while the doctors would be scrambling to recover & to find the cause.

The truth of how it happened — and who was blamed — would raise deeper questions about the hospital culture, and the dangerous confidence America had placed in modern maternity care. Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-salt-babies-zkdws8/

https://time.com/archive/6625294/medicine-death-in-the-formula/

https://www.nytimes.com/1962/03/12/archives/6-babies-die-in-2-days-at-binghamton-hospital-salt-found-in-sugar.html

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19620530.2.47&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------