Look elsewhere for subjects - on prisoner medical testing

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2006-08-21-oppose-medicine-prison_x.htm

USA Today
 

 
Look elsewhere for subjects
 

Posted 8/21/2006 10:02 PM ET

By Paul Wright

More than 100 prisoners in Washington and Oregon were paid $10 a month to have
their testicles irradiated by government researchers. Prisoners in Pennsylvania
were among those who had dioxin rubbed into their skin. They were also given LSD
and other hallucinogens by military scientists. These abuses continued well into
the 1970s. And until the early 1990s, private companies used prisoners in
Arkansas and Arizona as plasma donors, which dramatically increased the
contamination of the U.S. blood supply with hepatitis and HIV.

The United States has a lengthy history of abusing prisoners in the name of
medical research. It was this well-documented history that led to the near
prohibition of federally funded prisoner medical experimentation by the 1970s.
The Institute of Medicine's proposal to loosen these recommendations is
ill-advised and shows a poor understanding of the modern American prison system.

The key element to any ethical system of human subject testing is informed,
voluntary consent. Prisons and jails fail on all counts. All 50 states and the
federal government have banned sex among prisoners and staff because detention
facilities are inherently coercive, and prisoners cannot give "consent" in any
meaningful sense of the word.

The average American prisoner is, statistically, likely to be mentally ill,
substance addicted and functionally illiterate. Prisoners also tend to be
impoverished. Given the decades of abuse medical experimenters have inflicted on
U.S. prisoners, we know that this is an especially vulnerable group.

The claim that prisoners, very few of whom even have access to adequate medical
care, would somehow benefit from cutting-edge research would be laughable if the
consequences were not so serious.

Prisoners are still being used for privately funded medical research.
Investigative reports have found that these experiments are shrouded in secrecy,
and the prisoners are unlikely to have given meaningful consent. They often have
"volunteered" in a desperate attempt to get what they perceive to be better
medical care than they otherwise would.

The door that was mostly shut 30 years ago on prisoner medical testing should
remain firmly closed.

Paul Wright is the founder and editor of Prison Legal News, a monthly human
rights magazine, and co-editor of the forthcoming book Prison Profiteers: Who

Profits from Mass Imprisonment

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