In the mid-twentieth century, Americans turned to Canada as a proving ground to help save the lives of North American soldiers and children. To American medical researchers and government officials, the province of Alberta in western Canada provided ideal conditions for scientific experimentation in military and civilian field trials with human subjects. During the 1940s, American military personnel worked closely with their Canadian counterparts to learn from mustard gas open-air field trials and gas chamber tests conducted on more than 2,000 soldiers at the Suffield Experimental Station in Alberta. These human experiments were part of Allied preparation for potential chemical warfare during World War 2. A decade later, American scientists and leaders of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis invited Canadians to enrol children in a massive clinical trial in the US of the Salk poliomyelitis vaccine. The testing of over 1 million children, including approximately 50,000 in Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, was part of the battle against polio in the 1950s. How did Canada contribute to American medical research through testing in Alberta? Why was data generated in this Canadian province of interest to American researchers?

These two very different historical case studies demonstrate an American interest in the ‘Alberta Advantage’ promoted to medical researchers. They reveal some of the key themes in the history of US–Canada health relations, an emerging area of scholarship. These case studies show that in times of crisis, Canadian officials were eager to collaborate with Americans in order to save lives, offering Alberta as an ideal location for research.