Suppose, hypothetically, a big pharmaceutical firm comes up with what they think will be a miracle drug. They call it, say, Fosterox. They are in a hurry and worry they can’t find enough test subjects for their clinical trials if they seek informed consent. So they use the drug on human subjects without such consent.
The initial trials are inconclusive. The lead researcher tells the company president:
“We don’t know whether Fosterox is a powerful intervention toward the positive or a powerful intervention toward the negative.”
Instead of ending the experiment, the company president demands ever larger trials, all on human subjects, all without their informed consent.
Oh, and all the test subjects for this massive human experiment are children, and they’re disproportionately nonwhite.
If a drug company did that, they could be subject to lawsuits and civil penalties. In at least one state, California, those responsible could be jailed.
Which brings me to something Jill Duerr Berrick,
distinguished professor of social welfare at the University of California,
Berkeley, said at a meeting of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in
August …
