1990: FDA issued a waiver from informed consent for military use of experimental drugs
The FDA waiver from informed consent was to permit the DOD to use unapproved, experimental drugs and vaccines on enlisted soldiers—in violation of the foremost “absolutely essential” mandatory ethical principle defined by the Nuremberg Code.
1990: CDC Inoculated Black and Latino Babies with an Unlicensed Measles Vaccine
A covert clinical trial by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente inoculated Black and Latino babies with an experimental measles vaccine without informing parents the vaccine was experimental. More than 1500 six-month old black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given the deadly “experimental” measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States; a vaccine that had been tested in African and Mexican babies resulting in high death rates. The parents were never informed and they never gave their consent. The CDC harmed babies, violated federal law, and trampled on parental rights with impunity.
The vaccine was a high potency EZ-HT “high-titer” measles vaccine that had been tested in the Third World (Mexico, Gambia, Guinea, Togo, Senegal, Haiti) in the 1980s prior to testing it in in impoverished Black and Latino babies in Los Angeles in 1990. In remote villages in Senegal two “high-titer” vaccines were tested – EZ-HT and SW-HT – against placebo in a large a randomized 3-year study. M. Garenne and colleagues reported that both high-titer measles vaccines had “significantly higher mortality at 41 months than children who received the standard low-titer measles vaccine.” Children who received the SW-HT vaccine died at a rate of 51% higher than those who received the standard vaccine – there were 48 excess deaths for every 1,000 babies. Those who received the – EZ-HT vaccine died at a rate of 80% higher than those who received the standard vaccine – there were 75 excess deaths for every 1,000 babies. (“Child Mortality After High-Titre Measles Vaccines: Prospective Study in Senegal” in The Lancet 1991)
The high-titer measles vaccine apparently lowered children’s overall immunity rendering them fatally susceptible to common childhood diseases from which they died. Officials in both the World Health Organization and the CDC knew that the evidence – demonstrated by the higher death rate – confirmed that the experimental EZ-HT vaccine was deadly; yet, the Los Angeles study, which was co-sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, proceeded in 1990.
The public was deceived by CDC officials who claimed that EZ-HT “produces a better immunological response than standard vaccines.”
The Los Angeles trials were halted when Dr. Joanne Hatim, an active proponent of vaccine safety, was able to muster public outrage, not before nearly 1500 Black and Latino babies were subjected to the experimental vaccine without their parents’ consent. CDC Director, Dr. David Satcher (who was not the director when the experiment began) defended the CDC in The Los Angeles Times (1996). He stated: “there was no ill intent” on the part of the agency in not telling parents that the vaccine had not been licensed for use in the United States, which is why it is termed “experimental” in this country.
“But things sometimes fall through the cracks…” (Cimons. CDC Says It Erred in Measles Study, 1996)
Of note, the “things” Dr. Satcher referred to, were babies!
David Satcher went on to become the U.S. Surgeon General (1998 -2002).
The 1994 Report of the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Committee acknowledges the risk of death associated with the EZ measles vaccine, but assures that children in the U.S. are not at risk:
“The committee does not consider the apparent increased relative risk of death following administration of high-titer Edmonston-Zagreb or Schwarz strain measles vaccine such as has been seen in clinical trials conducted in Senegal (Garenne et al., 1991) to be relevant to the United States because these high-titer vaccines are not licensed for use in the United States. The cause of the increased mortality such as that seen in Senegal is not known.”
A report by the A CDC report published in the journal Pediatrics (2004) excluded statistically significant harmful findings about the vaccine. The CDC authors failed to disclose that African American baby boys who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. For more than 10 years, CDC scientists intentionally concealed evidence of an increased risk of autism in Black babies.
(Read 2014 update below: CDC Concealed Evidence of Autism Risk in Experimental EZ-HT Measles Vaccine)
1991: World Health Organization announces CIOMS Guidelines
The guidelines dilute the standards of the Declaration of Helsinki. CIOMS guidelines set forth four non-specific ethical principles: respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice.
1992:Congress enacts PDUFA – Prescription Drug User Fee Act
PDUFA rendered the FDA dependent on industry for part of its operating budget. PDUFA fees undermined FDA’s independence and its ability to ensure public safety.
1993: Institute of Medicine report, Veterans at Risk: The Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite (1993) following extensive hearings (1991) revealed that between 1942 – 1975, the Navy and Army subjected military personnel to by the time WW II ended approximately 60,000 U.S. servicemen had been used as human subjects in chemical defense research. At least 4,000 of these had been used to test high concentrations of two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite (arsenic).
1994 Eileen Welsome reports secret plutonium experiments in the Albuquerque Tribune
Eileen Welsome of the Albuquerque Tribune brought to public attention secret human subject experiments involving plutonium injections and other secret radiation experiments conducted in the 1940s. Indigent patients and mentally retarded children were deceived about the nature of their treatment. Her report prompted Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary to declassify documents about human radiation experiments U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published Human Radiation Experiments; 150 experiments plus an additional 275 radiation experiments conducted by DOE and the Atomic Energy Commission, during the 1940s-1970s were listed.
Jan. 15, 1994: President Clinton issued an Executive Order establishing the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) whose report (1995) is a watershed document about unethical, government-sponsored human experiments by American physicians.
1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.
In 1997, eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.
Read testimony by Meryl Nass, MD before Congressional hearing, July, 2007: “A closely related smokescreen has been created around the safety of anthrax vaccine and its role in Gulf War illnesses… The research to determine the extent of anthrax vaccine’s contribution to Gulf War illnesses has simply not been done.”