Aborigines 'used in experiments'

Many children were taken from their homes as part of an official policy

Some Aboriginal children in Australia were once used for medical tests, it has been claimed.

Aborigine rights campaigner Kathleen Mills said she had heard of children being injected with a leprosy treatment and becoming very ill.

She said many members of the "Stolen Generations" - Aborigines taken from their homes and raised by white families - had similar experiences.

Senior politicians said they had never heard such claims before.

Ms Mills was speaking outside a Senate hearing in the northern city of Darwin, which is investigating possible compensation for the Stolen Generations.

Rudd's apology

Ms Mills, who is a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance of Aborigines, told the Senate hearing: "As well as being taken away, they were used... there are a lot of things that Australia does not know about."

She later told journalists she had heard how children were injected with experimental treatments for leprosy.

"My uncle worked as a medical orderly, he gave me the name of the medicine," she said.

"It made our people very ill and he said the treatment almost killed them."

Greens leader Bob Brown said medical records "needed to be scoured" to find out if there was any truth in the claims.

Northern Territory Labor Senator Trish Crossin told Australia's ABC News she has never heard such claims and wanted to know if any other branches of government were aware of similar allegations.

From the 19th Century to the late 1960s, many Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and brought up by white families in an attempt by the government to assimilate the indigenous population.

Aboriginal groups have been campaigning for years for compensation for the Stolen Generations.

Earlier this year Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments against Aboriginal people.