"With conflicts of interest increasingly casting doubt on the credibility of medical research, a leading surgery journal is cracking down on authors who fail to disclose links to industry, threatening to temporarily blacklist them."
INTRODUCTION: This bill seriously endangers, if not completely undermines, the democratic process and the rule of law. It will absolutely destroy the unalienable rights of trial by jury and informed consent. It is a radical transfer of the US Treasury into the hands of unaccountable private companies whose record shows far more concern about profits than in protecting and improving the health of the American people. It also concentrates the power of life and death in the hands of one very fallible human being and creates an unaccountable federal bureaucracy not subject to disclosure, independent oversight or the safeguards of accountability necessary in a free republic.
"Every year, drug companies spend $14 billion to test experimental substances on humans. Across the U.S., the centers that do the testing–and the regulators who watch them–allow scores of human test subjects to be injured or killed."
On behalf of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, or AHRP, I want to thank the members of the Committee, for this opportunity to share with you our understanding of the complex problems presented by medical research involving vulnerable populations, such as prisoners and children. We appreciate your difficult job, and recognize that you will need to exercise courage in your assigned mission, which is to protect prisoners from research abuse and exploitation.
“Courage,” in this context, means the courage to acknowledge uncomfortable facts about current practice and to speak truth to power,
NIH Scientists Gripe At Ethics Rule: NO Stocks in Pharmaceutical Companies – LAT / WSJ Sat, 5 Mar 2005 A group of dissident NIH scientists represented by an 18 member executive committee, are gripping about new rules prohibiting them from accepting fees for outside activities. Conflict of interest rules apply…
Contracts Keep Drug Research Findings Concealed – NY Times Mon, 29 Nov 2004 I. A front page article in the New York Times focuses on academia’s role (culpability) in keeping mum about the unpublished antidepressant clinical trial results. The unnamed focus of the article is the industry-supported American College of…
Conflict of Interest: Profits vs Safety Congressional Investigations US Senators Pharmaceutical industry holdings, 2004: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/SenPharma.pdf Oct 12: How Did the Vioxx Debacle Happen? USA Today / Lancet Oct 4: Op Ed: Psychiatry on the Ropes–WP / Evidence-based Psychiatry Oct 3: BBC PANORAMA TONIGHT – Taken on Trust – 13 years-Medical…
Scientists Decode Secret of Getting NIH Grants – WSJ Mon, 28 Jun 2004 The Secret of Getting Grants: Marketing Helps University Win $350 Million a Year, by Bernard Wysocki, a front page article in The Wall Street Journal, provides insight into an iron triangle that controls medical research. This triumvirate…
NIH Expert on Safe Drug Research Seeks Whistleblower Protection Tue, 14 Dec 2004 In the wake of the Associated Press investigative report about unethical NIH-sponsored AIDS research involving infants and pregranant women Africa, and charges of misconduct by high officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Senate Finance Committee…
10 monkeys killed in botched experiment at Johns Hopkins Sat, 6 Sep 2003 To err is human, but Johns Hopkins researchers have shown a tendency to cut corners on safety and ride roughshod with experimental subjects–human and animal. [See: https://ahrp.org/infomail/0701/19.php ] This time the victims are 10 monkeys and baboons…
THE ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP) 142 West End Ave. Suite 28P New York, NY 10023 April 4, 2003 Tommy Thompson, Secretary Department of Health and Human Services Dockets Management Branch (HFA–305), Docket Number 02N–0475, Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061 Rockville, MD 20852. Re: Docket…
Infomail Archive – Pre 2003 News Stories on Human Research Protection and Commentary by Vera Hassner Sharav December 28, 2002: Will 2 to 5 year old Amer. kids be exposed to Smallpox Vaccine? Israeli Intelligence says “No immediate threat” December 24, 2002: Moral turpitude: Herpes experiment surpasses Tuskegee December 20,…
