Big university hospitals are not exempt from (possibly) taking advantage of some children:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8245349/ The government has concluded at least some AIDS drug experiments involving foster children violated federal rules designed to ensure vulnerable youths were protected from the risks of medical research. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Office of Human Research Protections [OHRP] concluded that Columbia University Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, where several foster children were enrolled in drug studies in the 1990s, failed to obtain and evaluate whether it had proper consent, information and safeguards for the foster kids... ...The Associated Press reported May 4 that federally funded researchers in New York, Illinois and several other states tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children since the 1980s, often without providing the children with special advocates to protect their rights and interests... ...Several of the research institutions, including Columbia Presbyterian, told AP last month that they did not believe they needed to provide the advocates because their experiments held the promise of improved health for the children. Medical ethicists disagreed, saying the foster kids were vulnerable and required the added protection. Other states, like Wisconsin, said they wouldn?t even consider using foster children in such medical testing because of their vulnerabilities. Foster care agencies and frontline researchers who enrolled foster kids said they did so in an effort to get them cutting-edge drug treatments not available in the marketplace during the AIDS crisis of the early 1990s and that their efforts helped kids live longer... ...OHRP?s ruling is the first that federal research involving AIDS drugs and foster children violated federal protections. It was prompted by a complaint filed last year by the Alliance for Human Research Protection, an advocacy group in New York which raised concerns about a New York Post story documenting AIDS drug testing at a Catholic charity foster home in the city. The federal agency is withholding a decision on whether Columbia Presbyterian should have provided the foster children with independent advocates until it receives more information. But it criticized the hospital for not collecting enough information to even make decisions on what regulations it needed to comply with to protect the children. The investigation ?revealed no evidence? that the hospital?s review board ?considered and made the required findings when reviewing this research involving children,? OHRP concluded. Debbi Teach Your Children Well Maru __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
