http://www.theaustralian.com.au/index.asp?URL=3D/national/4289538.htm Consent-free research proposed By MARK RAGG 21apr99 AUSTRALIANS could be subjected to medical research without their consent if changes before the world's leading doctors' body are approved. That changes being considered by the World Medical Association would abrogate a principle established after Nazi experimentation in World War II. Other changes being considered by the association, which comprises more than 60 groups including the Australian Medical Association, include the right to withhold treatment on economic grounds. The changes were recommended initially by the association's medical ethics committee and were put to the WMA council in Santiago, Chile, last week. The council decided to present them to the association's general assembly in Israel in October. If passed, they would have great influence on how medical research is conducted throughout the world. They would also strongly influence the policies of the AMA and of Australian ethics committees, which approve proposals from Australian researchers. The AMA has not yet seen the proposed changes. The proposals come as some Western doctors' behaviour in carrying out research in the developing world has been called unethical. For example, US-based researcher Harry Heimlich wanted to inject live malarial parasites into people with HIV. He was refused permission in the US, so he conducted the experiment in China. Some US-funded trials in Asia investigating the transmission of HIV from pregnant women to their children have withheld the drug AZT, a known effective treatment. Internationally, the standard for medical research ethics is the WMA's 1964 Declaration of Helsinki (since amended three times). The proposal seeks to rewrite this, giving researchers far greater control and fewer restrictions. Helsinki stated: "The physician should . . . obtain the subject's freely given informed consent, preferably in writing." Under the changes, researchers could avoid that if they believe "the research involves only slight risk, (or) when the procedures to be used are customarily used in the practise of medicine without documentation of= consent". Helsinki said: "In any medical study, every patient . . . should be assured of the best proven diagnostic and therapeutic method." The proposal is that subjects "will not be denied access to the best proven diagnostic, prophylactic or therapeutic method that would otherwise be available to him or her". Those italicised words allow doctors to carry out research in less privileged areas =AD whether in developing nations or in parts of Australia = =AD while not offering the best possible healthcare to the participants in the research. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html =20 Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=3Dsubscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=3Dunsubscribe%20leftlink
