Research Abuse

LAST YEAR, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC was treated to the revelation that during the thirties the state of Alabama had bribed impoverished citizens into participating in a life-long study of syphilis. The participants, most of whom were black and all of whom were apparently unaware of the nature of the disease, were denied treatment in the Tuskegee "research," in exchange for the state's promise of elaborate free funerals.

We were also recently informed that a physician studying the side effects of the pill had prescribed a sugar placebo in lieu of the contraceptive to Chicano patients. These women were to be the "controls" in his experiment. To their surprise the women soon found themselves burdened with unwanted pregnancies.

A couple of weeks ago, a Medical School dean uncovered two studies in prominent medical publications in which a Texas research team had deprived infants of a fatty acid essential for growth and development. The team was aware that the deprivation of the nutrient could lead to irrevocable brain damage and would at least produce horrendous skin lesions. Black babies made up the overwhelming majority of the subjects used in those investigations.

Disclosure of the studies involving infants stemmed from the investigative work of Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, associate dean of Student Affairs. He called the two studies -- funded by Gerber Products and Baker Laboratories -- "abuse to satisfy mere curiosity" and warned that these were not isolated instances. But he is apparently the only individual at the Medical School who has been actively lobbying for Federal controls of experimentation with human subjects.

Unfortunately, Poussaint's single-handed effort is insufficient to expose all the abuse of human beings by physicians and researchers. The Medical School is obliged to take immediate and affirmative action with regard to regulatory legislation.

Clearly, low-income people and members of minority groups are the most frequent targets of misguided researchers. Regulatory legislation is necessary to curb the use of human guinea pigs. Researchers who exploit human subjects in their investigations ought by law to be held accountable for their crimes.

The Medical School, in its silence, gives consent to physicians and researchers to behave in manners subject only to the judgment of their own consciences. But their work is not a private affair. Historically, sanction by silence has inevitably led to exploitation. Privileges become understood as rights, and trust becomes a license for abuse.

The age-old injunction to solidarity within the medical profession, and the physician's privilege of expecting no criticism from his peers must be discarded. And the Medical School should feel compelled to organize that effort.

Certainly the institution that allowed its reputation to be exploited by a pharmaceutical conglomerate must realize the beneficial impact of attaching its good name to humanitarian legislation.

Curbing unethical behavior within the medical profession and the biomedical research arena is a task to which the Medical School should feel committed.