| quaalude 2005-10-29, 11:18 am |
| 'NO PROBLEM; WE'RE FIXING IT\" JANUARY 25, 2004. The release and
article below illustrate a common practice at NIH, the US-government
research facility that is the largest lab/bureaucracy in the world.
NIH execs receive monies from drug companies on the sly; NIH funds
very, very expensive studies of drugs made by these companies, thereby
saving the companies millions of dollars; the volunteers (human guinea
pigs) in these NIH studies have no idea they are part of a program in
which the controlling NIH execs have a conflict of interest which would
predispose NIH toward a favorable judgment about the safety and
efficacy of the drugs.
It's a grim picture and a RICO crime in progress. No one in the
federal government seems to care about the criminal aspect. The PR
assumption being floated is that, yes, \"mistakes have been made,\" but
the corrections are being applied.
No president, no White House ever really cares about these matters.
Everything is swept under the rug.
ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)
Promoting Openness and Full Disclosure
www.ahrp.org
FYI
The Associated Press has uncovered evidence of scientists and
administrators at the National Institutes of Health flagrantly
disregarding ethical and legal requirements of financial disclosure:
"In all, 916 current and former NIH researchers are receiving royalty
payments for drugs and other inventions they developed while working
for the government."
According to records obtained by the AP, among the 51 NIH scientists
currently involved in testing products for which they secretly receive
royalties, are Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his deputy, Dr. H. Clifford Lane
who "have received tens of thousands of dollars in royalties for an
experimental AIDS treatment they invented [interleukin-2]. At the same
time, their office has spent millions in tax dollars to test the
treatment on patients across the globe."
According to the AP, the government has licensed the commercial rights
to interleukin-2 to Chiron Corp: "Fauci's division subsequently has
spent $36 million in taxpayer money testing the treatment on patients
in one experiment alone. Known as the Esprit experiment, it is one of
the largest AIDS research projects in NIH history, testing
interleukin-2 on patients at more than 200 sites in 18 countries over
the last five years."
Five years ago Donna Shalala, then Secretary of the Health and Human
Services, issued federal requirements (2000) of financial disclosure
requiring NIH scientists to disclose their financial interest in
experimental treatments on informed consent documents reviewed by
patients being recruited as test subjects. According to the Associated
Press, NIH administrators did not even consider implementing the 5 year
old federal requirement until AP filed a Freedom of Information request
last week: \"Quite frankly, we should have done it more quickly..."
Scientists at the nation's premier research centers who violate
ethical and legal requirements and use underhanded recruitment tactics,
pose a very real and present threat to public safety: "hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of patients in NIH experiments made decisions to
participate in experiments that often carry risks without full
knowledge about the researchers' financial interests."
The scope of ethical / legal violations and corrupt human recruitment
practices by researchers at America's premier medical research
institutions is reaching the proportions of a tzunami. Self-regulation
and peer review have proven about as reliable at ensuring ethical and
scientific integrity as expecting the Mafia to vouch for the honesty of
one of its own...
It will take more than pledges and promises by the director of NIH-it
will take more than TALK about "transparency" to restore moral
integrity. It will take a law accompanied by specified penalties to fit
the crime-like the Sarbanes Oxley law. And most important, it will
take an external enforcement mechanism to keep scientists honest. Say,
a "corrupt science practice" division at the Department of Justice.
It will also require effective whistleblower protection laws.
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