Controversy sparks panel.To avoid any repeat of the sort of abuses some people suffered in federally sponsored radiation experiments before and during the Cold War, President Clinton last week set up a committee charged with setting clear ethical standards for human research. At a White House ceremony, Clinton described the National Bioethics bioethics, in philosophy, a branch of ethics concerned with issues surrounding health care and the biological sciences. These issues include the morality of abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, and organ transplants (see transplantation, medical). Advisory Commission (NBAC NBAC National Bioethics Advisory Commission NBAC New Brunswick Arts Council (Canada) NBAC Non-Blocking Atomic Commitment (protocol) NBAC National Brick Advisory Council ), whose members will also comb existing federal research involving humans for ethical flaws. The President proposed the NBAC in response to the highly publicized reports of his Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. He accepted that committee's final report at the same event. Both the committee's preliminary release of details on government-supported radiation experiments from 1944 to 1974 (SN: 10/29/94, p.276) and like studies by the Department of Energy last year revealed a startling star·tle v. star·tled, star·tling, star·tles v.tr. 1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start. 2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. pattern of secrecy and "abuse of patients' trust," according to committee head Ruth R. Faden, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University, mainly at Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins in 1867 had a group of his associates incorporated as the trustees of a university and a hospital, endowing each with $3.5 million. Daniel C. in Baltimore. Some of the secret studies were part of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to build an atomic bomb atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex. . In these experiments, researchers injected plutonium into people with cancer or other ills to note how long they'd retain the radioactive material. The injections offered patients no known benefits. Last week's final report paints a more complete mural of the nearly 4,000 biomedical bi·o·med·i·cal adj. 1. Of or relating to biomedicine. 2. Of, relating to, or involving biological, medical, and physical sciences. radiation studies. Most of them, the report states, involved radioactive tracers in amounts similar to those used today, and "most . . . were unlikely to have caused physical harm." These included immune-linked tracers for insulin, studies that spawned today's radioimmunoassays for trace hormones and other molecules. But the report contrasts this work to such quiet Manhattan Project experiments as those designed to find what total body irradiation Total Body Irradiation (TBI) is a radiotherapy technique used to ablate the bone marrow and immune system prior to bone marrow transplantation or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. It may be used as part of high-dose treatment of some leukaemias and lymphomas. does to people with tumors known to be unresponsive to radiation. Because the committee also found signs of "serious problems" in today's research--though nothing like what's in the Cold War report--the NBAC will probably begin with those. Seriously ill patients, the report notes, may have unrealistic expectations about enrolling in studies because consent forms may be overly optimistic. |
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