Presented by Vera Hassner Sharav
14th Tri-Service Clinical Investigation Symposium
Sponsored by The U.S. Army Medical Department and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancment of Military Medicine
The cornerstone of public trust in medical research is the integrity of academic institutions and the expectation that universities, which rely on public funding, have a responsibility to serve the public good. Financial conflicts of interest affect millions of American people – those who are subjects of clinical trials testing new drugs and those who are prescribed drugs after their approval.
Recent revelations indicate that pharmaceutical companies have selectively reported partial (favorable) clinical trial results from pediatric antidepressant trials and concealed evidence of harm from physicians, other health care professionals, and the public. It is universally agreed in the literature that failure to disclose all trial results compromises physicians’ ability to provide professional care – thereby increasing the likelihood of causing preventable harm. More generally, failure to disclose trial results in scientific publications taints the scientific literature (by rendering it not credible) and, as New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer charged recently, constitutes plain and simple fraud.
A landmark decision by Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, is a victory for the human rights of children. The decision affirms the responsibility of parents, the government, researchers and institutional review boards (IRB) to protect children from non-therapeutic experiments that may put their health at risk.
A public advocate for human rights is the founder and president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) which serves as an information resource and public interest watchdog organization whose goal is to unlock the walls of secrecy in biomedical research and bring accountability to that endeavor. AHRP Infomails…
AHRP Letter to Editor re: ARDS published NEJM Fri, 11 Jul 2003 A truncated version of a Letter to the editor submitted by John H. Noble, Jr., PhD and Vera Sharav appears in the current July 10, 2003, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Note: On April 3,…
Today’s New York Times Magazine cover story, Planet of the Retired Chimpanzees By Charles Siebert, reports that chimpanzees who have served as subjects in biomedical research can look forward to being set free in one of 12 specially built chimp sanctuaries the prettiest places in all of Florida. This is…
