Death Points to Risks in Research

Death Points to Risks in Research - washingtonpost.com:

"Breaches of clinical research standards and a federal oversight system that allowed key decisions to be made behind closed doors may have helped draw Mohr into an experiment that was not, her husband says, what she thought it was."

Comment: This WP story is based on the death of a patient with a relatively minor ailment who was undergoing gene therapy. It is not known whether the experimental therapy triggered her fatal illness, so the story should not be taken too literally.

It does illustrate however that biomedical research involves risks. Ethical conduct is important, as are the rules to ensure such conduct. I would suggest that among the most important rules for ethical conduct is the requirement for informed consent of the research subjects. It is also important that efforts be made to assure that the potential benefits to the subject are commensurate with the risk that the subject is allowed to incur.

Still, without the research on human subjects, medical techniques would not expand and we would all be the worse in the future. JAD