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[YOUR CHILDREN] USED AS LAB ANIMALS: Where was Child ProtectiveServices????



 
 
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Old March 27th 07, 06:35 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
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Default [YOUR CHILDREN] USED AS LAB ANIMALS: Where was Child ProtectiveServices????

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_frien...113734,00.html

Drug Tests on Foster Kids Spark Scandal in NYC

Wednesday, March 10, 2004
By Wendy McElroy


Were HIV-positive infants and children in the Manhattan foster care
system (search) used as guinea pigs in medical experiments? That
question is at the heart of a potential scandal that could propel child
welfare systems in North America toward greater transparency and
accountability.

On Feb. 29, The New York Post exposed the problem in three articles by
Douglas Montero (search): The first, "AIDS Tots Used as 'Guinea Pigs,'"
claimed that about 50 children had been used in 13 medical experiments,
some involving high doses of AIDS medications, at Manhattan’s
Incarnation Children's Center (search). The Post later revised the
number to 100 in the light of data released on March 1 by New York
City’s Administration for Children's Services, following a review of
their files.

The second article, "I Took Girls Out of Hell and City Stole Them Back,"
was the story of Jacqueline Hoerger, a pediatric nurse and foster mother
to two girls from ICC, where she had worked from 1989 to 1993. Social
workers took the girls from Hoerger because she refused to administer
AIDS medications that she learned were "highly toxic and mostly untested
in children."

At ICC, Hoerger says she witnessed experimental treatment "on
HIV-infected children, some as young as three months."

In the third piece, an op-ed entitled "Defenseless Kids’ Guardian Agency
Won’t Come Clean," Montero posed his questions for the ACS: For example,
"how many children were involved?" And, to whom could the children "call
for relief if researchers prodded too hard, hurt them, made them cry or
made them sick?"

In other words, what authority supervised the treatment of children who
had no parent or foster parent to render consent?

The ACS assigned the children to the studies, but the agency lacks the
medical expertise to evaluate whether the application of an experimental
treatment is appropriate or abusive. Moreover, according to Anat
Jacobson, a spokeswoman for the Public Advocate's Office that serves as
a watchdog to the ACS, her agency had no knowledge of the experimental
treatments.

Jacobson expressed concern that the ACS might have "just unilaterally
signed up these kids."

The ACS could answer Montero's questions, but instead, it seems to be
invoking privacy concerns in order to remain silent. When questions
involve aggregate numbers and protocol, however, there is no privacy
issue. And there are well-established methods for discussing medical
studies that preserve the anonymity of subjects.

In the presence of official silence, the facts alleged gain credibility.
What are they? A good place to begin is with the ICC, which is run by
the Archdiocese of New York’s Catholic Charities and was opened in 1989
to provide residential and outpatient medical care for HIV-infected
children. The ICC has conducted dozens of experimental medical studies,
most of which were funded by federal grants or — more controversially —
by pharmaceutical companies.

One of the ICC’s experimental studies, sponsored by the National
Institutes of Health, was entitled "HIV Wasting Syndrome." Its purpose
was "to see how beginning or changing anti-HIV medications affects the
body composition … of HIV-infected children."

No one could fault researchers for administering appropriate drugs to
sick children and monitoring the results, especially when the children
might not otherwise receive treatment. But questions immediately arise
concerning studies that purportedly tested the "safety," "tolerance" and
"toxicity" of AIDS drugs. Or one that tested the reaction of
HIV-positive children, ages six to seven months, to the injection of two
doses of measles vaccine. The ICC used to offer descriptions of such
experiments on its web site, which became abruptly inoperative in the
wake of the Post’s investigation. Without data, how can the validity be
judged?

News of the experiments is already fueling outrage. "They are torturing
these kids, and it is nothing short of murder," Michael Ellner of Health
Education AIDS Liaison declared of the experiments that ended in 2002.

Biochemist Dr. David Rasnick, an expert in AIDS medication, reviewed the
AIDS drugs administered to the children and concluded that alone, or in
combination as they often were administered, the drugs had "acute
toxicity which could be fatal."

ACS must be forthcoming. Silence or bureaucratic answers aren’t going to
work this time. Driven by criticism by officials such as New York City
Councilman Bill DiBlasio, the New York Health Department is beginning to
investigate.

Moreover, the "scandal" has hit the international press. A headline in
last week’s Japan Today announced, "HIV-infected kids in New York used
as 'guinea pigs.'" Newspapers in France and the U.K. echoed the
accusation. Too many eyes are watching.

It is usually parents who look out for children — comfort their tears,
shield them from abuse, and make wrenching decisions about their
welfare. Who comforted and protected the parent-less, HIV-positive
infants and children at ICC? I hope there were hospital staff who held
each sick child in their arms and wanted nothing more than to heal the pain.

But data has disappeared. Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling
reportedly told journalists that he did not know why the experiments
stopped in 2002 or whether any of the children had died. Nicholas
Scoppetta, who headed ACS during the experiments and has since left the
agency to become New York City's current fire commissioner, will not
comment.

Hopes are not enough. For once, a child welfare system must have the
courage and decency to open itself to public scrutiny.


http://www.laleva.org/eng/2004/04/ai...inea_pigs.html

AIDS tots used as ’guinea pigs’

March 3rd, 2004 (New York Post)
By DOUGLAS MONTERO
Source: Survivereausida.net

February 29, 2004 -- The state Health Department has launched a probe
into potentially dangerous drug research conducted on HIV-infected
infants and children at a Manhattan foster-care agency, The Post has
learned.

Some 50 foster kids were used as "guinea pigs" in 13 experiments with
high doses of AIDS medications at Manhattan’s Incarnation Children’s
Center, sources said.

Most of the ICC experiments were funded by federal grants and in some
cases, pharmaceutical companies. They used city foster children, who
were sent to the Catholic Archdiocese-run facility by the Administration
for Children’s Services.

ICC was involved in 36 different experiments, according to the National
Institutes of Health Web site. One study researched "HIV Wasting
Syndrome," which studied how a child’s body changes when his medication
is altered.

A handful of the experiments involved combining up to six AIDS drugs -
so-called "cocktails" - in children as young as 3 months, and another
explores the reaction of not one, but two doses of the measles vaccine
in kids ages 6 to 7 months.

Other studies tested the "safety," "tolerance" and "toxicity" of AIDS drugs.

"They are torturing these kids, and it is nothing short of murder," said
Michael Ellner, a minister and president of Health Education AIDS
Liaison, an advocacy group for HIV parents.

Biochemist Dr. David Rasnick, a visiting scholar at the University of
California at Berkeley and an expert in AIDS medication, was outraged
because the drugs, alone or combined, have "acute toxicity which could
be fatal."

He said the drugs’ side effects include severe liver damage, cancerous
tumors, severe anemia, muscle wasting, severe and life-threatening
rashes and "buffalo hump," where fatty tissues accumulate behind the neck.

Housed in a former convent and run by the Archdiocese of New York’s
Catholic Charities, the foster-care agency described the experiments on
its own Web site, which was abruptly shut down after The Post began
making inquiries.

Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said experiments at ICC were
halted in 2002. He said he did not know why. Zwil- ling also said he did
not know if any children had died.

An ACS spokeswoman said the agency hasn’t approved any new experiments
since 2000 because the "risks outweighed the benefits." She declined to
explain further. That agency is also reviewing its files on the case.

Jacqueline Hoerger was a pediatric nurse at ICC from 1989 to 1993 and
said the experimentation was going on even back then. "We were taught
that any symptom we saw was HIV-related," said Hoerger, 43. "The
vomiting, diarrhea, wasting syndrome, the neurological side effects -
they were dying. There was death."

She didn’t think doctors were doing anything wrong, however, until years
later, when she tried to adopt two of the foster girls. When she refused
to give the kids the center’s high-powered AIDS cocktails for fear it
was making them sicker, ACS had social workers take the children away
from her.

Advocates for children question the ethics of experimenting on foster
kids - especially those too young to know what’s happening to them.

"The most vulnerable, disadvantaged children are being exploited by
powerful entities and used as guinea pigs as if they were not human
beings," said Vera Sharav from the Alliance for Human Research and
Protection.

The tests were conducted by doctors from Columbia Presbyterian Medical
Center, which was affiliated with ICC until 2002 and reaped the
financial benefits of the research.

"Through these trials, children at the ICC outpatient clinic gained
access to state-of-the-art treatments for HIV," said Annie Bayne, a
Columbia spokeswoman.

ACS policy states it seeks parental consent before a child is enrolled
in a study. If the parents cannot be found, ACS’s medical and legal
divisions, and its commissioner, must all approve.

The condition, however, is that the experiment "offer each participating
child a significant potential benefit, a concomitant minimal risk of
injury or harm," ACS spokeswoman MacLean Guthrie said.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, who headed ACS at the time of the
experiments, refused comment.

Officials at ICC, which was established in 1989 to house and care for
HIV-infected "boarder babies" left stranded in city hospitals, refused
to talk to The Post.








UK Observer

Title: “GlaxoSmithKline Allegedly Used Children as Laboratory Animals”

Author: Antony Barnett

Barnett's article is based on the original research of Liam Scheff which
can be viewed at:

http://www.altheal.org/texts/house.htm

Democracy Now! December 2004

Title: “Guinea Pig Kids: How New York City is Using Children to Test
Experimental AIDS Drugs.”

Mainstream Media Coverage: Fox News Network, The O’Reilley Factor, March
10, 2004, CBS Morning News, February 2, 2005.

Faculty Evaluator: Jeanette Koshar, Ph. D.

Student Researcher: Mike Cattivera, Kiel Eorio

Orphans as young as three months old were used as test subjects in AIDS
drug trials in New York’s Incarnation Children’s Center. The Center,
which is run by Catholic Charities, specializes in treating HIV
sufferers, and the drug trials were performed on children with HIV or
who were born to HIV-positive mothers. The New York City Health
Department is looking into claims that more than 100 children at
Incarnation were used in as many as 36 experiments. Most of these
experiments were sponsored by federal agencies such as the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Documents obtained by the UK Observer have implicated British
pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline’s involvement in at least four
experiments conducted at Incarnation since 1995 using black and Hispanic
children. Several trials were conducted to test the toxicity of AIDS
drugs. In one trial, children as young as four received a high-dosage
cocktail of seven drugs; another tested the reaction of six-month-olds
to a double dosage of a measles vaccine. Other studies conducted on
children included testing AZT, which can carry dangerous side effects,
as well as testing the long term safety of anti-bacterial drugs on
six-month old babies. GlaxoSmithKline also used children to “obtain
tolerance, safety and pharmacokinetic data” for Herpes drugs.

These trials were conducted by Columbia University Medical Center
doctors. A spokesperson for Columbia University said that there have
been no trials at Incarnation since 2000, and that the consent for using
the children as test subjects was provided by the Administration for
Children’s Services. Consent was based upon a panel of doctors and
lawyers who decided whether or not the benefits of allowing the child to
receive the drugs outweighed the risks (although it was unclear what
recipient “benefits” referred to). Though GlaxoSmithKline has
acknowledged their involvement in the trials at Incarnation, they deny
any wrongdoing. According to their spokesperson: “These studies were
implemented by the U.S. Aids Clinical Trial Group, a clinical research
network paid for by the National Institutes of Health. Glaxo’s
involvement in such studies would have been to provide study drugs or
funding but we would have no interactions with the patients.”

The medical community has defended these studies, saying it enabled
children, normally without access to treatment, the opportunity to
receive AIDS drugs. However, many, outraged at these studies, argue
there is a difference between providing children with the latest AIDS
drugs and using them for experimentation. According to Antony Barnett,
several experiments were considered to be Phase 1 trials, which are
among the most dangerous. These drugs are similar to those used in
chemotherapy and carry serious side effects. Critics also argue that it
is difficult to test babies for HIV, and results are often incorrect;
therefore many of these trials may have been conducted on babies or
children not actually infected with HIV.

These trials at New York’s Incarnation Children’s Center were part of a
broader series of HIV and AIDS drug trials that were conducted in at
least seven states on foster children. Some children died during the
trials. However, government officials have so far found no evidence that
their deaths could be directly connected to the experiments.1

NOTE

1. http://washingtontimes.com/metro/200...3959-2907r.htm.

BALTIMORE -- Foster children were entered into AIDS drug trials because
it was the only way to get the latest drugs for children not responding
to approved medications, a state official said yesterday.
The children under state care were enrolled in trials at Johns
Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical System, said Sue
Fitzsimmons, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services.
"What we had was the medical community referring foster kids to the
study because it was all that was available for them," Miss Fitzsimmons
said.


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEIR
"FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
 




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