controversial study in new york city that took place in the 1960s and 70s in which an adoption agency, the louise wise services, felt that it was beneficial to twins to be separated, to grow up to develop their own identity. at the time, there was a researcher, dr peter neubauer, at the child development centre at the jewish board of guardians, who had wanted to study twins raised apart, and here was his sample. neubauer had a colleague and friend, viola bernard, who was the adviser to the adoption agency, called louise wise services. so she placed a set of twins in different families back in the 1950s. when she told neubauer about it he said, they must be studied. the scientists, you know, they were the masterminds of this study, neubauer and bernard. kathy and her sister, lori, were deliberately divided as infants as part of the research programme. they only met as
splitting up and taking one child each, to mix ups in infant wards, but never before had twins been separated as part of policy. when i first got to the university of minnesota in 1982 i heard about this controversial study in new york city that took place in the 1960s and 70s in which an adoption agency, the louise wise services, felt that it was beneficial to twins to be separated, to grow up to develop their own identity. at the time, there was a researcher, dr peter neubauer, at the child development centre at the jewish board of guardians, who had wanted to study twins raised apart, and here was his sample. neubauer had a colleague and friend, viola bernard, who was the adviser to the adoption agency, called louise wise services. so she placed a set of twins in different families back in the 1950s. when she told neubauer about it he said, they must be studied. the scientists, you know, they were the masterminds
february of 2018, there was a 2020 episode about louise wise agency separating identical twins back in the mid 60s, and my older sister who s adopted, called me and said, can you imagine if either of us was a twin? and i said, well, that s ridiculous. and i remember getting a shiver all over my body thinking, wow, what if this was real? in the 1960s, an adoption agency in new york, the louise wise services, began a policy to deliberately split up identical and fraternal twins, and place the infants in different families. the adoptive parents were never told that their children had siblings. any louise wise adoptee from the 605 has every right to think perhaps they have a twin. the separated twins were placed in a controversial study to explore what makes us who we are, and how much is defined by nature versus nurture. but at what cost? it s so emotional for me.
retrospectively at development and really could not capture development in real time. here was an opportunity to track development in real time as it unfolded. the twins were placed with adopted families who were not told that their child was part of a twin pair. they were not told the real purpose of the study. they were told only that thier child was in a child development study, was already enrolled, and it was obvious if they did not accept the study, they did not accept researchers coming to the home periodically, they probably would not get this child. they all had an older sibling who had been adopted from louise wise and that was the hook they had in terms of getting parents to agree because they had to agree, because they had an older sibling adopted there was a sense of how confident the parents were. remember, these were parents desperate to have children. as one mother put it, i would learn to fly if i could have a child ,
and supermodel kate moss tells the bbc that being asked to take off her bra during a photoshoot when she was 15 years old opened her eyes to the dangers of the fashion industry. now on bbc news split at birth: twins divided. in the 1960s, an adoption agency split up infant twins and placed them in different families as part of a controversial study. the move had a seismic impact on their lives. february of 2018, there was a 2020 episode about the louise wise agency separating identical twins back in the mid 60s, and my older sister who s adopted, called me and said, can you imagine if either of us was a twin? and i said, well, that s ridiculous. and i remember getting a shiver