NIH Tested AIDS Drugs on Foster Children by Ed Gordon for NPR
GNN Note – This is from 2005. We are republishing to show the NIH, the institute FAU-CHI is overseeing has been doing evil for a long, long time. /END
Earlier this May, the Associated Press reported that National Institutes of Health researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children in the late 1980s and ’90s. In many instances, the drugs were given without independent advocates who monitor the safety of these children. Ed Gordon explores the controversy with two AIDS experts: Dr. Jonathan Fishbein of the National Institutes of Health and Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr. Mark Kline. [GNN Note – emphasis mine]
From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I’m Ed Gordon.
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Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that researchers at the National Institutes of Health had tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children in the late 1980s and ’90s. In many instances, allegedly, the drugs were given without having independent monitors assigned to the children, which is the law in most of the states where these tests were conducted. Dr. Jonathan Fishbein, an AIDS research expert at the NIH, has criticized his agency for what he says is irresponsible drug testing. Dr. Fishbein joins us from Bethesda, Maryland.
Doctor, thanks for joining us.
Dr. JONATHAN FISHBEIN (Division of AIDS, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease): My pleasure being here, Ed.
GORDON: I think a lot of people would be shocked and will be shocked as this story gets further play in the media to find out just how many young people were, in fact, part of this, quote, “experiment,” if you will. When you found out and when you looked at the numbers, did it surprise you?
Dr. FISHBEIN: I was surprised. I did not realize that foster children were a readily available source of clinical trial participants. I don’t feel that foster children should not be given this opportunity to be involved in research, but I do feel strongly that federal rules regarding the use of foster children ought to be followed closely.
GORDON: We’ll get into that in just a moment, but I’m curious whether or not you see this as an opportunity, or whether or not those who were conducting the research saw it as an opportunity, to utilize these kids as, for lack of a better term, guinea pigs, particularly based on the livelihood of most kids in foster care, and by that I mean many of them minority, many of them going into the system poor and, really, a voice with little political muscle.
Dr. FISHBEIN: One of the things that you need to consider is, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when there were no established treatments for children with AIDS, that clinical research was the only opportunity for some of these children to get some of the drugs believed to be beneficial to their condition. I think these children are easily available to researchers, and I think that the issue of protection is one that needs to be more closely scrutinized by the institutional review boards where the research is conducted. Many of the states where the research was conducted require that advocates be appointed to oversee each child who is enrolled in a clinical trial.
