HIV-positive foster kids used as guinea pigs

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-03-01 09:35am

DEFENSELESS KIDS' GUARDIAN AGENCY WON'T COME CLEAN

February 29, 2004 -- THE city's Administration for Children's Services is so busy protecting the privacy of foster kids it won't talk about how those kids were used as HIV guinea pigs.
My questions were simple:

How many HIV foster kids have they allowed to be used in experiments?

Whom could they call for relief if researchers prodded too hard, hurt them, made them cry or made them sick?

These defenseless kids couldn't run home and cry to mommy - their "mother" is the ACS bureaucracy.

I TOOK GIRLS OUT OF HELL - AND CITY STOLE THEM BACK

She did her job and figured the doctors at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which is affiliated with ICC, knew what they were doing. It wasn't until she was allowed to take the sisters, ages 6 and 4, home in late 1998 that she began questioning the doctors and suspected they were conducting research.

"They were given to me as total wrecks," Hoerger said, describing how the oldest was hyperactive and sickly and the youngest was lethargic, extremely overweight and could barely walk.

She learned the drug cocktails were highly toxic and mostly untested in children after listening to a speech by Dr. Philip Incao, of Denver, who travels across the country questioning current HIV medical practices.

She decided to wean them off the drugs with Incao's help.

That's when the brow-beating began. The Administration for Children's Services, which has admitted to allowing researchers to conduct medical experiments on HIV-infected children, and the Catholic Home Bureau, the adoption arm of the Archdiocese of New York, became the doctors' enforcers.

Medical experimentation without consent is a crime.
These bureaucrats should be taken outside and hanged from the nearest lamppost.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-03-01 10:13am

Assuming that's true (I don't exactly trust the source), that's fucking sick. That's almost up there with the Tuskegee Prision Experiment kind of sick.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-03-01 10:14am

Gil Hamilton wrote:Assuming that's true (I don't exactly trust the source), that's fucking sick. That's almost up there with the Tuskegee Prision Experiment kind of sick.

This should read "Tuskegee syphilis experiment".

Darth Phoenix · Post by **Darth Phoenix** » 2004-03-01 10:16am

I have no words

These bureaucrats should be taken outside and hanged from the nearest lamppost.

That is to good for them

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-03-01 10:55am

Gil Hamilton wrote:Assuming that's true (I don't exactly trust the source),

Yeah, there's always that. The Post isn't exactly the Times.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-03-01 11:05am

These bureaucrats should be taken outside and hanged from the nearest lamppost.

Fuck that, keep them alive and let THEM be used for the most nasty research on humans imaginable.

fgalkin2 · Post by **fgalkin2** » 2004-03-01 11:55am

Joe wrote:
These bureaucrats should be taken outside and hanged from the nearest lamppost.
Fuck that, keep them alive and let THEM be used for the most nasty research on humans imaginable.

Ebola vaccine.

Or something involving vivisection.

The fucks.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-03-01 06:29pm

Sweet bloodied trout... Those poor kids. I... cant express my anger. I usually have few qualms with research, but on kids without consent? Fuck that shit.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-03-01 11:00pm

As much as I love the screaming shit fit going on here, let's stop and be rational people for a minute:

A) Never once does it mention what these experiments are that are so objectionable.

All that's mentioned is that some of the children have been given experimental or semi-experimental drugs designed to slow or stop AIDS. That's hardly bloody murder here, in fact if they work that's a damn good thing. Either way there's no evidence provided that the kids were actually harmed.

B) The Post isn't the most reliable source.

This is clearly designed to stir things up and provides damn little real evidence. If there was any evidence at all you'd better believe it'd be in there. It's not.

Hence, I think it was a slow newsday and some one decided to start a controversy to get it going.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-02 01:01am

fgalkin2 wrote:
Joe wrote:
These bureaucrats should be taken outside and hanged from the nearest lamppost.
Fuck that, keep them alive and let THEM be used for the most nasty research on humans imaginable.
Ebola vaccine. Or something involving vivisection. The fucks.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Erm... Ebola vaccination attempts are just as fatal as the disease itself. Just so you know, the experiment is a death sentence. And that's nowhere near enough evidence for it. But if every accusation is true and they did test unproven drugs on children without anyone's consent then have at it as far as I'm concerned.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-03-02 01:59am

You know, if this threads continues to idiots screaming their heads of it's just going to get closed. There's no need nine thousand "Yea ha, try 'em and fry 'em" posts.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-03-02 02:06am

Stormbringer wrote:You know, if this threads continues to idiots screaming their heads of it's just going to get closed. There's no need nine thousand "Yea ha, try 'em and fry 'em" posts.

Isn't that the point of these threads though? The only reason people post these things in the bulk rate that they do is that it gives people their daily dose of moral outrage. I mean, where else can posters go to suggest various forms of painful death that they'd never actually condone in real life?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-03-02 02:09am

Gil Hamilton wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:You know, if this threads continues to idiots screaming their heads of it's just going to get closed. There's no need nine thousand "Yea ha, try 'em and fry 'em" posts.
Isn't that the point of these threads though? The only reason people post these things in the bulk rate that they do is that it gives people their daily dose of moral outrage. I mean, where else can posters go to suggest various forms of painful death that they'd never actually condone in real life?

Don't know. Not really too concerned. But when people don't even bother reading the topic and posts and just yell, it's clearly not worth keeping open.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-03-02 02:15am

Stormbringer wrote:All that's mentioned is that some of the children have been given experimental or semi-experimental drugs designed to slow or stop AIDS. That's hardly bloody murder here, in fact if they work that's a damn good thing. Either way there's no evidence provided that the kids were actually harmed.

It is unethical to perform experiments without consent, and consent was not given. Moreover, it is absurd to say that there's no harm done if the drugs work, when the whole point of an experiment is that you don't know whether the drugs work, and what side-effects they might have. Do you understand why it is unethical to test experimental drugs on people without their consent?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-03-02 02:25am

Darth Wong wrote:It is unethical to perform experiments without consent, and consent was not given.

Actually, consent was given by their legal guardians, the ACS. The article quoted is leading since it claims the parents (who are not their legal guardians) didn't give consent. But the ACS which is, apparently did.

Darth Wong wrote:Moreover, it is absurd to say that there's no harm done if the drugs work, when the whole point of an experiment is that you don't know whether the drugs work, and what side-effects they might have.

That is an issue but modern clinical trials are such that they should be safe. Indeed most have gone through rigorous testing to make sure it's safe for people. But you're right, any time you use it on a human being for the first time it's something of an experiment. The fact is there's nothing at all to suggest these violated any sort of ethics for clinical trials.

Though some are not exactly experimental, simply never given to kids before. And again, there's nothing that suggests any proof that they were harmed by the drugs.

Darth Wong wrote:Do you understand why it is unethical to test experimental drugs on people without their consent?

Yes, I do indeed. The thing is, I'm not seeing any credible evidence that they did not obtain consent nor that they engaged in unethical or harmful practices.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2004-03-02 02:36am

I think you adressed the actual problem with your first sentence. The ACS should not be allowed to give individual consent for such actions in such a flippant manner.

As for the amount of Me-tooing in these threads, it is, like mentioned above, a form of venting moral outrage. Unlike some others, the average poster has a much higher tolerance before they are truly outraged, and when they are, the vengeance the wish to seek is often far greater. Where-as a fundementalist would picket a gay man's house, or maybe fantasize about vandalizing his property, we can express our fantasies to see people who are utterly abominable by any definition be tortured, mutilated and killed in fashions that most people only dream about in their darkest nightmares. It's a mix of jest and vented hatred, and generally seems that the pluses of the venting outway the couple dozen spam posts they might generate.