Huge payout in US stuttering case

Huge payout in US stuttering case

news.bbc.co.uk

Six US citizens who, as children, were used in an experiment that tried to induce stuttering have been awarded nearly $1m (£500,000) in compensation.

In 1939, the plaintiffs - all orphans in state care - were tormented for six months by Iowa University researchers.

The study was testing the theory that children develop speech impediments because of psychological pressure.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Experimenting on orphans?
What were these guys thinking - abuse of power doesn't even begin to describe this.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Meh. They're just orphans. They aren't human beings. They dont have feelings. They dont have souls. They wont go to heaven.

Please. If you cant see the sarcasm. LEt me tell you it is definaely there.

Poor kids. I wonder who the hell was funding this unethical research?

I'm speechless. Doing this to children? The fact that they were orphans wasn't enough pressure? Then these researchers torment them to induce lifelong impediments.
Frankly. I think that $1,000,000.00 isn't near enough compensation. These researchers, in my opinion, are criminals. Disgusting.

Originally posted by lombozo
Frankly. I think that $1,000,000.00 isn't near enough compensation. These researchers, in my opinion, are criminals. Disgusting.

Spot on. What they did was actually child abuse. These people should be put on trial as the criminals they are, assuming they are still alive, and if the are I don't care how old or frail they are.

It makes you wonder as to what's going on today that we don't know about.

It's absolutely sickening.

Originally posted by DaRAGE
I wonder who the hell was funding this unethical research?

Probably a sign of the times.
Who knows what other experiments have gone on in "civilized" society in the last 200 years?

Prisoners, orphans, the mentally challenged or anyone adrift in society was probably fair game for scientific experiments. :shk:
Not to mention the poor treatment each group received on a daily basis.


news.yahoo.com...
(link to the AP story)

[edit on 20-8-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

Sign of the times? I think not:

On March 10, 2004, The Alliance for Human Research Protection filed a complaint with the FDA and the federal Office of Human Research Protection about a series of AIDS drug experiments conducted on New York City children in foster care. That complaint prompted two separate investigations by the FDA and OHRP which are still on-going.

Articles in The New York Post and a documentary by BBC raised the alarm among the African-American and Latino community in NY-some of who have been protesting weekly in front of Incarnation Children's Center, the site of some of the drug experiments.

The Associated Press AP has just released its investigative report: the problem is a national scandal--the experiments were conducted in "at least seven states -- Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas -- and involved more than four dozen different studies.

www.ahrp.org...

Despite the existence of this code and subsequent medical ethics codes, Mengele’s legacy lives on. This time, the culprit is none other than the United States government through its involvement in numerous questionable and immoral human research programs. Lest you think that the scientific community and government agencies would not carry out immoral experiments on humans, particularly children, think again. For example, the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s forays into human experimentation recently came to light after the Washington Post reported that the EPA had approved a two-year study in which families who use pesticides in Duval County, Fla., would be paid to continue using them and to monitor their children’s exposure. Each family would be paid $970 in order that scientists might discover how children’s bodies absorb hazardous chemicals. Although scientists may not know the full effects of these poisonous chemicals, they do know that children are at greater risk than adults. Yet rather than advising parents to keep children away from pesticides, the government is paying them to poison their children. Thankfully, after U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (CA) and Bill Nelson (FL) threatened to block the full-time confirmation of Stephen Johnson, the EPA’s acting administrator, if the experiment were not cancelled, Johnson ended the Florida pesticide program on April 8, 2005.

www.rutherford.org...

It's not about time, it's about corporate greed. And it still happens. Sick, isn't it?

These are not isolated incidents:

As ClinicalTrials.gov reveals, in 2005, Massachusetts General Hospital conducted an 8-week trial study that recruited children as young as four years old to be drugged and monitored, including having their blood drawn, to see if their tiny four-year-old bodies would tolerate a powerful psychotropic drug (Seroquel).

Here's more from ClinicalTrials.gov:

This is an 8-week open-label study aimed at assessing the effectiveness and tolerability of Quetiapine, in the treatment of preschool children aged 4 to 6 years with bipolar and bipolar spectrum disorder. This is an exploratory, pilot study, seeking to determine whether Quetiapine is efficacious and well tolerated in the treatment of preschoolers with pediatric bipolar and bipolar spectrum disorder in this age group.

Ages Eligible for Study:4 Years - 6 Years, Genders Eligible for Study: Both

Subject must be able to participate in mandatory blood draws.

Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States; Recruiting

Joseph Biederman, MD, Principal Investigator

source

(2005)
In response to the BBC documentary and article "Guinea Pig Kids", the New York City Administration of Children's Services (ACS) sends out an Apr. 22 press release admitting that foster care children were used in experimental AIDS drug trials, but says that the last trial took place in 2001 and thus the trials are not continuing, as BBC reporter Jamie Doran claims. The ACS gives the extent and statistics of the experimental drug trials, based on its own records, and contracts the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct "an independent review of ACS policy and practice regarding the enrollment of HIV-positive children in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s and 1990s" (New York City ACS).

In exchange for receiving $2 million from the American Chemical Society, the EPA proposes the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) to learn how children ranging from infancy to three years old ingest, inhale and absorb chemicals by exposing children from a poor, predominantly black area of Duval County, Fla., to these toxins. Due to pressure from activist groups, negative media coverage and two Democratic senators, the EPA eventually decides to drop the study on Apr. 8, 2005 (Organic Consumers Association).

Bloomberg releases a series of reports suggesting that SFBC, the largest experimental drug testing center of its time, exploits immigrant and other low-income test subjects and runs tests with limited credibility due to violations of both the FDA's and SFBC's own testing guidelines (Bloomberg).

source

Preying on immigrants and other poverty-stricken individuals
During the Holocaust, the Nazis confined the marginalized sectors of society -- Jews (including children), gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and the mentally retarded -- into camps that became human guinea pig-filled laboratories for IG Farben's experimental drug studies. Today, marginalized populations still make up a large portion of experimental drug test subjects; however, socioeconomic factors, rather than concentration camp authorities, make them more likely to sell their bodies to Big Pharma.

It's no accident that SFBC, the largest experimental drug testing center in North America, is located in Miami. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Miami-Dade County "is the only county in the country where more than half the residents are foreign-born." After immigrants come to Miami from countries like Cuba, Colombia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Argentina and Mexico, they need money, yet experience the employment limitations that little or no fluency in English, little education, unfamiliarity, prejudice and, in some cases, lack of a work permit brings. With few other options available, these immigrants find one of the few legal jobs that doesn't require any amount of English proficiency or education and may even accept forged social security cards: Professional guinea pig.

Many immigrants participate in multiple, simultaneous drug studies. Combining these experimental drugs is a recipe for disaster "because researchers don't know how the different chemicals interact or what side effects the mix may have on a person," according to the Bloomberg article "Miami Test Center Lures Poor Immigrants as Human Guinea Pigs". However, given the fact that some studies only pay $25 per day, what else are the truly marginalized subjects supposed to do? "It's not the job I would choose, but financial circumstances require you to do it sometimes,'' Venezuelan immigrant Oscar Cabanerio told Bloomber

source

There's an awful lot more where that came from - I think I'm beyond shock now and well into outrage.

The people who experiment and those who allow them to (those who do so without proper or informed consent) are just as guilty as the nazi's or stalin.

And the key here, is informed consent - not telling someone they might have a headache for a couple of days, but telling them the true risks involved.
Unfortunately though, this doesn't happen and doesn't seem to matter to the companies peddling drugs - they just want their cash, and sod the consequences for whichever poor bugger they pumped full of chemicals.

Too bad the flag wavers and Fox news morons will think that there is nothing wrong with the government doing anything it wants, they actually trust the fiends in power and the mad scientists that rely on the Federal payout to exist.

Our Government murders, tortures, lies, condones depraved conduct and all in the name of science and learning. The children are the most helpless and so the most desired by sick and twisted reserchers looking to make a name for themselves and get more dollars. Morality means nothing to them; they are like abortionists that day after day rip babies out of wombs and assemble their broken and torn bodies on a sheet to count the parts and make sure none is left inside..they place their morals and humanity on the shelf when they go to work. If only the horrors could be forgotten as easily by the victims of such barbarity.

The USA has a long and shameful history of coerced experiments: remember the blacks in Alabama that were given syphllis to study them long term? And the evil Dr. Cameron in Canada that ruined many young minds at the behest of the corrupt US govt.? We usually do not hear about these things until many decades have passed and no legal actions can be taken; the government just claims that nothing can be done and nothing is, except to continue horrific experiments on unwitting people to this day.

The image of America as being some nice and fuzzy and warm place with leaders that have morals and the peoples best interests in mind is a fantasy: we are no better than any others and far worst than most. The nations with huge military budgets and huge intelligence budgets always have huge funds set aside for new and more effective means of controlling the masses. It is all propaganda: we are no more moral that Botswana, we just have more money to spend on ' research ' and other devious schemes that impact people terribly.

In university labs and guarded bassments in subterranean fortresses made with our tax dollars, there are at this moment men and women that are working on ' projects ' that is known about by the average citizen would cause total disbelief and nausea and horror to overwhelm any decent and humane human being. Do you really think that the real rulers of this planet, the big players, are going to let history simply unravel as it will? they are plotting and planning and actively working to limit the populations, control those who remain, and subdue any contrary views.

We have seen the proof of all this unfold by executive orders and horrendous laws that a totally whipped congress and senate have passed without a whimper. All it will take is some big Cheney inspired event to take place and the lid will drop and the camps will fill and the troops will pour into the cities, it will be the takeover that the neocons have dreamed about and that is not almost there.

If you stop and think about it, there are many good reason for the evil and despicable rulers we now have to keep ever more programs going that can alter our ability to fight back, to react the way we need to to survive, and no doubt there have been so many terrible programs already put into place that we will never hear about most or any of them ever. How could ANY citizen trust ANY government official ever again after all we have seen happen just in the last 6 years? 9-11, an OBVIOUS inside job, and yet the sheep just ignore it.

We have all been effectively sidelined by the media and by our laziness and habits and selfish natures, and middle class white folks just do not take to the streets and raise hell..thats a sad fact. In Europe, if the people get pissed off enough, they simply shut down the government and riot and overwhelm the forces that the govt. sends and they get results. WE on the other hand, sit and watch TV and expect the otrher guy to get the job done and protect us from the monsters in charge.

American Idol and sports and sit coms are the life blood of the average American, no wonder that they are so ill informed and so uneducated about the real state of affairs in this world. Most young Americans cannot even answer the following question: What year did the ' attack ' on New York and Washington happen ? Only 20% know it was 2001. Why> Because the media wants it remembered only in the context of propping up the Bush regime; the media is just an arm of the far right and there are NO news outlets that cover the truth. None. Not at the national level. No major netwoks will even touch the subject. Why.

Because the obvious will scream the truth if examined and so examination is not allowed. WE are too dumbed down and complacent to matter anymore. The bad guys have won. they need not fear a pathetic and weak public like we are. really think that people will revolt? No way, all they have to do is promise a comfy seat and a TV and some food and the average American would get on the bus to the camp without a squawk.

Incredibley, perhaps only the criminal elements will help us; they will not lay down and go quietly and they do not believe the nonsense about the Govt. being our friend, they know better. So maybe a revolution of sorts will start with the most common elements of our society taking a stand and the rest falling in behind them with weapons and a determination not to be taken prisoner by our own govt. for no good reason. Many lower classes will grab a gun and at least make it painful for them to control us in every way; the upper classes will hire private guns for protection and the middle clas, ruined financially, will be the victims and fodder for the rulers new world order.

The main purpose of any mind control agenda is to ultimately control the masses and make them slaves..working in the facories just to survive and allowing no dissent or other views, we see that now, when anyone tries to express themselves at a Bush event, they are arrested and removed so King George cannot have his and his mommys ' beautiful minds ' bothered by all of the little people who object to imperial goals and the ruin of America by a small band of criminals and their cohorts.

So when you hear about more and more programs that are meant to explore new paradigms in the human being, remember that most of them are meant only to find a way to control us or make us more susceptible to the machinations of the evil and corrupt rulers that now dominate us as a nation. We are too far gone to fix; get ready to flee or fight!!

Originally posted by eyewitness86
The main purpose of any mind control agenda is to ultimately control the masses and make them slaves..working in the facories just to survive and allowing no dissent or other views...

And that particular agenda has recently been realised in a most chilling way...

This ATS thread on a similar subject Memories can by erased using drugs details new research into a substance that could erase/inhibit learned behavior toward such an end. after what I've read on this thread so far, it makes me wonder when the first human guinea-pig trials will commence

reply to post by citizen smith


They've probably already started - but without our knowledge - think I might have to get tin foil innards to go with the hat


Seriously though - no wonder the countries going down the pan, this is what your money is spent on.

Originally posted by budski
They've probably already started - but without our knowledge

If that's the case...how would you know as you'd have no memory of the event after the tests were conducted

Originally posted by citizen smith

Originally posted by budski
They've probably already started - but without our knowledge

If that's the case...how would you know as you'd have no memory of the event after the tests were conducted

Like I said, without our knowledge - if you have no memory of an event, then you have no knowledge of it

That aside, if these are the experiments which are known about, how many take place that will never see the light of day?
Scary stuff.

Horrifying stuff, and no doubt only scratching the surface of what really goes on. After all, this was eventually allowed to be known.

Originally posted by resistor
Horrifying stuff, and no doubt only scratching the surface of what really goes on. After all, this was eventually allowed to be known.

I agree - the problem is finding it, this news snippet was buried under a sub heading on the BBC site, and the BBC is hardly known for it's admiration of the US, despite it being the propaganda wing of the labour party.
However, with a bit of digging you can find plenty of other examples of this type of medical experiment.