VA hospital used unconsenting patients as guinea pigs

[Guest guest]

I found this at abc's web site. (December 17. 2000)

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/veteransresearch990419.html

" ....... Accused Doctor Still at Work

According to the report, one patient at the LA hospital, who had not given

permission

and had a “delusional disorder,” was kept on an operating table longer than

necessary

while doctors collected data on his heart catheter. Another, a World War II vet,

collapsed

and died in the hospital’s parking lot after taking an experimental heart drug

whose risk his

daughter insists he did not understand. The most serious finding in the report

focused on an

experiment Sager led on a heart patient who had “refused to consent” at least

twice. The

report quotes Sager as saying he “would proceed anyway,” and then allegedly

extending

a medium- to high-risk operation by 45 minutes to obtain data.

Meanwhile, Sager remains chief of cardiology at the West LA facility. He has

served a

10-day suspension, and congressional sources say the committee chairmen plan to

ask

Veterans Affairs officials why stronger punishment was not meted out. A call to

Sager’s

office seeking comment was answered by a secretary who called the information in

the

Times report “biased.” She said Sager had no comment. But after the Times broke

the

story of the board’s report, Sager had this to say: “I have made mistakes … I

take them

extremely seriously, greatly regret them and have made major efforts to be

certain these

things don’t happen again.”

A Call for Criminal Prosecution

Regrets don’t satisfy Everett.

“It’s criminal assault,” Everett said.“I certainly would like

to see him

prosecuted. As far as I know, the VA has not taken one action against this

doctor.”

Although he is angry about the situation in West LA, Everett is not entirel

surprised..... "

" ..... But according to Tom Puglisi, director of the

Division of Human

Subjects Research for the Office of Protection from Research Risks, when his

staff

looked into the report that the hospital might have lapses in its informed

consent

procedures, they uncovered a slew of other problems. Among the shortcomings

were sloppy record-keeping, shortage of review staff, lack of independent

oversight

for some research projects, insufficient procedures for informing patients about

and

obtaining consent for research (especially in psychiatric experiments) and

questionable

safety and ethics standards..... " ]

Gretchen

List owner