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| Panel suggests using inmates in drug trials |
| By The New York Times News Service |
| Published: 08/14/2006 |
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PHILADELPHIA, PA - An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. The proposed change includes provisions intended to prevent problems that plagued earlier programs. Nevertheless, it has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and sparked debate among prison-rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in. Supporters of such programs cite the possibility of benefitting prison populations, and the potential for contributing to the greater good. Until the early 1970s, about 90 percent of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, federal officials say. But such research diminished sharply in 1974 after revelations of abuse at prisons like Holmesburg in Philadelphia, where inmates were paid hundreds of dollars a month to test items as varied as dandruff treatments and dioxin, and where they were exposed to radioactive, hallucinogenic and carcinogenic chemicals....Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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