Harvard Issues Response, Cites Serious, Troubling Questions

The following is the text of Harvard's statement on the Wrentham State School research issued yesterday by the Harvard University office of News and Public Affairs:

Over the past few weeks, Harvard University, along with other institutions, has been working cooperatively with the Department of Mental Retardation's (DMR) Task Force To Review Human Subject Research, in an effort to shed light on past research projects at institutions run by the DMR. In connection with this effort, we recently became aware of an article published more than thirty years ago in Science magazine. ("Minimal dosage of Iodide Required To Suppress Uptake of Iodine-131 by Normal Thyroid," Science, October 19, 1962.) We in turn brought the article to the attention of the DMR Task Force, as part of our continuing effort to help the DMR in its work.

The Article describes a research study conducted at the Wrentham State School from Mid-December 1961 to mid-April 1962. The article indicates that the research was intended to determine the minimum dose of ordinary iodine needed to reduce contamination of the human body by radioactive iodine. As part of the research, approximately 60 children at the Wrentham State School were orally administered tracer doses of radioactive iodine over a period of weeks.

According to the article, the study was sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service. The Authors of the study are identified as Charles Pryles, who was Director of Medical Services at the Wrentham School and who is believed to have been associated with Boston University School of Medicine; Krishna Saxena, then a research fellow in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and affiliate of Harvard Medical School; and Earle Chapman, then as assistant clinical professor of MGH.

We became aware of this decades-old research only very recently, and we have so far located no additional documents concerning the research in question. We continue to explore possible sources of such information, in cooperation with others. For now, unanswered questions remain about which residents of the Wrentham School may have participated in the research; whether and to what extent consent may have been sought form their parents or guardians; and whether and in what manner different institutions may have been involved in the research. We are continuing to work closely with the Task Force and others to help answer these important questions.

These are serious and troubling questions about why children at an institution such as the Wrentham School were chosen to participate in this research. We are committed to exploring these questions not only though continued cooperation with the DMR Task Force, but also through a special Harvard faculty committee that has been formed to review research involving human subjects in decades past.

At least some past or present residents of the Wrentham school and their families may be learning about this research for the first time. We very much regret the anxiety that this news may cause them. Please know that we are working cooperatively with the Task Force and others to understand more about the research, to seek the identity of participants, and to assess any possible risks to their health. However small the tracer doses of radiation involved, the research raises important questions about why residents of the Wrentham School were chosen to participate, and we are determined to pursue those questions in light of all available information.