SAMHSA Backs Away From TeenScreen & TMAP Mon, 24 Oct 2005 On October 17, a meeting took place with Charles Currie in Washington DC – with some in attendance by conference call. Currie is the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal agency charged…
August 20, 2001 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…
Marcia Angell: The Body Hunters & The Constant Gardner Mon, 19 Sep 2005 Marcia Angell’s insightful and informative review of the film and John le Carre’s book, The Constant Gardner, needs no additional commentary: "On the basis of the research I did for my book I believe that most of…
Protecting People with Mental Disabilities and Impairments against Biomedical Research Abuse[*] By John H. Noble, Jr., Ph.D, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA Vera Hassner Sharav, MLS, Alliance for Human Research Protection, New York, USA People with mental disabilities and impairments historically have been targeted by biomedical researchers…
Highest Court in Maryland Validates AHRP’s Position in Decision to Affirm Federal Prohibition on Non-Therapeutic Experimentation on Children To read the full text (98 pages) of the Maryland Court of Appeals decision, go to the following URL for a pdf version: http://www.law.uh.edu/healthlaw/law/StateMaterials/Marylandcases/grimesvkennedykreiger.pdf (Depending on the speed of your connection, it…
Efforts to Expand Emergency Exception from Informed Consent Thu, 6 Oct 2005 The following announcement posted to the IRB Forum by Dr. Robert Nelson, a KOL (key opinion leader) within the close-knit IRB community– who serve as gatekeepers of human research –demosntrates that the culture of secrecy is entrenched in…
Anthrax Vaccine Consent Form / Should You Roll Up Your Sleeves_WSJ Sat, 29 Mar 2003 The Administration’s determination to push its two controversial vaccine programs forward–smallpox and anthrax–even as medical experts urge caution in light of the serious health risks posed by these vaccines – raises serious questions about whose…
Hopkins Study: Medical Consent Forms Confusing Wed, 19 Feb 2003 A Johns Hopkins study reviewed the template of informed consent forms of 114 campuses– nearly all the country’s accredited medical schools. It applied two widely used readability tests and found the consent forms approved by local institutional review boards (IRB)…
Ethics / Science of ARDS Controversy Continues – J Medical Ethics-BMJ Thu, 6 Oct 2005 The ethics and science of a controversial clinical trial sponsored by the US government and conducted at multiple sites by the ARDS Network comprising of prestigious academic medical centers is the subject of a continuing…
Is This Permissible Medical Research? Fri, 27 Sep 2002 A federally funded experiment for the treatment of acute respiratory distress (ARDS) conducted at 12 major research centers, 1996-1999, has come under sharp criticism. The ARDS researchers sought to find a method for reducing the death rate among acutely ill patients…
Rutherford Files Mental Health Screening Lawsuit_Indiana / Fierce Opposition to TeenScreen Mounts – Pittsburgh Mon, 19 Sep 2005 The Rutherford Institute has just filed a lawsuit in Indiana challenging a school for subjecting a teenager to a mental health screening test – TeenScreen–without her parents’ knowledge or consent. After completing…
Protecting Human Subjects in Research: Are Current Safeguards Adequate? AHRP Testimony submitted to Congressional Committee April 23, 2002 Vera Hassner Sharav, President, and John H. Noble, Jr., Ph.D., steering committee member, The Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP), before the Subcommittee on Public Health, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, &…
