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Unregulated herpes experiments expose 'black hole' of accountability
Recent revelations that a U.S. researcher injected Americans with his experimental herpes vaccine without routine safety oversight raised an uproar among scientists and ethicists. Not only did Southern Illinois University researcher William Halford vaccinate Americans offshore, he injected other participants in U.S. hotel rooms without Food and Drug Administration oversight or even a medical license. Since then, several participants have complained of side effects.
But don't expect the disclosures after Halford's death in June to trigger significant institutional changes or government response, research experts say. "A company, university or agency generally does not take responsibility or take action on their own to help participants, even if they're hurt in the trial," said Carl Elliott, a professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. "These types of cases are really a black hole in terms of accountability." The federal government once scrutinized or even froze research at universities after learning of such controversies. Now, experts said, the oversight agencies tend to avoid action even in the face of the most outrageous abuses.
Experts said the U.S. regulatory agencies are especially unprepared to deal with off-the-grid experiments like Halford's. He recruited subjects through Facebook and in some cases didn't require signed consent forms, or informed participants outright that the experiments flouted FDA oversight. These patients, many who struggle with chronic, painful herpes, proceeded anyway in their quest for a cure. After Halford's offshore trial, Peter Thiel, a libertarian and adviser to President Donald Trump, pitched in millions of dollars for future research.
Previously: Hopes of Extended Lifespans Using Transfusions of Young People's Blood
University Could Lose Millions From "Unethical" Research Backed by Peter Thiel
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 25 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)
The ugly part is that testing a new treatment in a low regulation part of the developing world is a lot cheaper than doing it in the US. For example, a pharm company could secretly test a group of new drugs in the developing world and then once they have a good idea what works, use parallel construction to test only the drugs that show strong positive results officially. That alone would greatly reduce R&D costs even when the latter research continues to be done in the developed world.
Currently, whoever doesn't fully play by the rules has a significant advantage over those who do. While some of that may be unavoidable, we can veer away from regulations that make that worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @12:01PM (1 child)
I see, so the solution is to remove regulations in order to... what now?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 25 2017, @12:40PM
Cheaper, faster, and better medical advances in our lifetimes and those of our descendants. The opportunity cost of making every medical advance subject to a lot of costly regulation is that billions of people will die prematurely. It also protects high value cartels via the creation of considerable barriers to entry.
It also encourages widespread disregard for law (via the advantages from breaking rules rather than obeying them). In this story, a dying researcher took big short cuts because there was otherwise a good chance that the research would never happen. He won't pay for the consequences of his actions because he is already dead. Other ways will be figured out.