Originally published May 16 2005
AIDS experiments on foster children unconscionable, says column in Seattle PI
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Seattle PI reports that over the last two decades a number of foster children, mostly poor or minorities, were given AIDS medicines shown to cause serious side effects in adults. These drugs were apparently administered without research into safe dosage levels for children. Researchers defend the experiment by saying it exposed the children to their best hope for recovery and statistics showed a marked improvement in AIDS-related deaths among foster children. Seattle PI responded by saying the results were unclear and the argument was not enough to justify experimentation on children.
It's a story that belongs in the dark era of the 1930s, with the evils of the infamous syphilis studies inflicted on black men by the U.S. Public Health service at Tuskegee.
But this story comes instead from the past two decades, in which, according to an Associated Press story by reporter John Solomon, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health tested emerging AIDS drugs on hundreds of children in foster care.
The children -- most of them poor or minorities -- were given drugs whose serious side effects in adults were well known and whose safe use and dosage in children were unproven.
The Associated Press managed to document hundreds of instances in which independent advocates were appointed to represent foster children involved in the studies, as required by federal and state law.
We're awaiting word on whether such testing took place in Washington.
Some researchers defend the experiments, arguing that they made available to these children the latest technology and best hopes for living with the disease.
And there are statistics to indicate that the number of AIDS deaths in foster children dropped dramatically over the same time period.
But the direct correlation between the experimentation and the drop in deaths is unclear at best.
Besides, this end-justifies-the-means argument is insufficient to excuse exploitation of such vulnerable subjects.
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