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Hernando Today

Poorest Of Poor Being Treated Like Lab Rats

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By FRANCES EARL, Call to Patriots

Hernando Today

Published: December 18, 2008

As I write today, I am in tears! What happens when our country OKs the torture of human beings? How far does this "doctrine" stretch to become an approved practice by pharmaceutical companies? And how much of human life has been devalued by our so-called leaders deciding that human beings can be incarcerated without charges, threatened by vicious dogs, waterboarded, beaten and forced into actions that cause moral shame and degradation?
It appears that human beings, people of extreme poverty with few options if they become ill or are just so poor they will volunteer for experimental drug and medical testing to feed their families, are being used as human guinea pigs for "new" medical procedures and drug testing.
Every day in our media we see advertisements for volunteers to participate in experimental drug trials. A dear friend volunteered to take part in one of these trials a couple of years ago. Don was a big man, a man of great strength who had already spent a great deal of money on skin cancer treatments and, now that the cancer had spread elsewhere, he felt he had to protect his family from the devastation of increased expenses for further treatment. I cannot tell you how I felt as I spoke with him on the phone one day and this huge, powerful man broke into tears from the extreme pain he was experiencing from every possible side effect of the treatment he was getting.
Don passed away with great and unnecessary suffering some months later. Why are these drug companies being allowed to test on human beings? How much of the authority they are receiving to do so is attributable to the fact that our very government has lowered the treatment of human beings and called it right and moral?
Cases of horrible abuse of human beings in Mumbai (Bombay), India, have been documented in the media. Asif Iqbal's father was diagnosed with brain cancer and they went to the government hospital in Mumbai (Tata Memorial Hospital) and agreed to an "experimental" treatment, surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. His father underwent surgery done without first shaving his head and Asif was told that "not shaving is the latest" way to operate. The forms he signed approving this were in English and he could not have known that what it really said was that the procedures he was agreeing to merely tracked the infection rate in patients operated on without shaving the head.
Maheshbhai Macwana, 42, has enrolled in a half-dozen "studies" due to financial desperation. He said, "We give our bodies to them." He needs, but cannot afford, medications for liver and stomach problems, but is getting drugs he does not need instead. He decided he could not continue, regardless of the financial benefit. His son was hit by a car and broke his leg and he could get treatment for him one of two ways — go into debt or enroll for a new trial. He chose the latter. His question is: "Are there any international regulations for conducting trials? How do we find out about such things?"
Ramsakhi Devi had a cancerous tumor removed from her left cheek and was then told she could sign up for a clinical trial or go home. A 55-year-old widow "who can neither read nor write, put her thumbprint on the consent form…" Her son thought he understood the terms of the trial, but he was wrong as there were three options, not just the one he thought she would receive. The form said they could withdraw from the trial at any time, but the doctors told them they had to complete the entire month of treatment. He said, "If you say something about the treatment, the doctors become unhappy."
Why have pharmaceutical companies been given permission to conduct experiments on human beings? Why are the poorest of the poor being treated like lab rats? One of the volunteers for multiple trials made only $140 per month and enrolling for the trials doubled his income so he could feed his family. Do you think they can get accurate results from any trial when three or more previous trials, using various drugs, have already probably changed the patient's ability to recover from the effects of multiple experiments? We see drugs removed from the market because they are killing people rather than helping them and, why does the FDA approve drugs with horrendous side effects?
Support for those who place their greed and financial gain ahead of any human decency has become the norm. When a government proclaims that torture is an approved method of interrogation it encourages an ideology that denies humane treatment of all of us.
Do my Jewish friends remember Dr. Josef Mengele of the Third Reich? Is history repeating itself in an ugly way and how do we stop it?

Frances Earl, former vice-chairwoman of the Hernando County Democratic Executive Committee, may be contacted at fearl@tampabay.com.

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