Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Friday October 15, 1999
David Rising, Associated Press Writer
On Thursday, top health, prison and legal experts met here to begin drafting guidelines that would ensure such research is done ethically.
Conference organizer Dr. Anne De Groot, co-chair of the HIV/Prison Project at the Brown University AIDS Program, said guidelines regarding research on prisoners were written in the early 1970s - before AIDS and hepatitis C - and are in need of updating.
According to De Groot, 17 percent of people infected with HIV, and 33 percent of those infected with hepatitis C, pass through the nation's prison system each year.
"On the outside, patients have the right to participate in medical research and there is no ethical reason to deny them that right in prison," De Groot said.
Not everyone at the conference agreed.
"This country has a terrible history on this issue, and that there are physicians and medical ethicists who want to get back into this gives me a chill," said Allen Hornblum, who teaches at Temple University and has written a book, "Acres of Skin," about medical testing done on inmates in the United States.
In the 1950s, U.S. researchers conducted medical tests on American prisoners that were likened by critics to Nazi experiments. Inmates were injected with herpes, hepatitis and syphilis. Some had their testicles radiated; others were inflicted with wounds to see how they healed.
Partly because of such abuses, research on inmates dropped dramatically and was banned in some states.
Nancy Neveloff Dubler, a lawyer, said prisoners may feel coerced to participate in research programs to get better medical care, more comfortable accommodations or other such considerations. Prisoners are also sometimes paid for participating in drug trials.
Still, ailing inmates should be given access to experimental treatment, said Dubler, director of the Division of Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Care at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
Barry Duncan, a former inmate from Pennsylvania who was invited to the conference, underwent traditional treatment for HIV while in prison. He said prisoners should be given the option of participating in research projects.
"Somebody who is sickly and has been through all the cocktails (AIDS treatments), maybe something new will help them," said Duncan, now an advocate for the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania.
The three-day conference, which ends today, is funded by Bristol Myers Squibb and several other drug companies.
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