Unqualified Offerings

(Posted by Jennifer)

Problem number one: the United States has the highest prison population in the world. Problem number two: pharmaceutical companies in the United States are having difficulty finding human research subjects for their new drugs. Could the former problem somehow negate the latter? Maybe! The government wants to let pharmaceutical companies do medical research on inmates again:

[The proposal] has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and incited debate among prison rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in.

Supporters of such programs cite the possibility of benefit to prison populations, and the potential for contributing to the greater good.

Until the early 1970’s, about 90 percent of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, federal officials say. But such research diminished sharply in 1974 after revelations of abuse at prisons like Holmesburg here [in Philadelphia], where inmates were paid hundreds of dollars a month to test items as varied as dandruff treatments and dioxin, and where they were exposed to radioactive, hallucinogenic and carcinogenic chemicals.

The article goes on to say that, though the lack of test subjects means this proposed change comes at a truly advantageous time, the pharmaceutical companies insist they had nothing to do with it. But it certainly would be marvelously beneficial to both the prisoners and all humankind:

Dr. Albert M. Kligman, who directed the experiments at Holmesburg and is now an emeritus professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, said the regulations should never have been written in the first place.

“My view is that shutting the prison experiments down was a big mistake,” Dr. Kligman said.

While confirming that he used radioactive materials, hallucinogenic drugs and carcinogenic materials on prisoners, Dr. Kligman said that they were always administered in extremely low doses and that the benefits to the public were overwhelming.

He cited breakthroughs like Retin A, a popular anti-acne drug, and ingredients for most of the creams used to treat poison ivy. “I’m on the medical ethics committee at Penn,” he said, “and I still don’t see there having been anything wrong with what we were doing.”

That’s the sort of thing I write when I’m being sarcastic: “In justifying the injection of prisoners with radioactive substances, he cited many overwhelming benefits to the public including zit cream and poison-ivy balm.” Of course, I don’t write for the New York Times. Anyway, other veterans from the Holmesburg staff are less impressed by their achievements:

Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman, a New York dermatologist who worked at Holmesburg during the 1960’s trials as a second-year resident from the University of Pennsylvania, said he remained skeptical. “I saw it firsthand,” Dr. Ackerman said. “What started as scientific research became pure business, and no amount of regulations can prevent that from happening again.”

Others cite similar concerns over the financial stake in such research.

“It strikes me as pretty ridiculous to start talking about prisoners getting access to cutting-edge research and medications when they can’t even get penicillin and high-blood-pressure pills,” said Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, an independent monthly review. “I have to imagine there are larger financial motivations here.” … On the issue of compensation for inmates, the report raised concern about “undue inducements to participate in research in order to gain access to medical care or other benefits they would not normally have.” It called for “adequate protections” to avoid “attempts to coerce or manipulate participation.’’

No protection will ever be adequate. As the article also points out, prison walls don’t just keep people in; they keep prying eyes out. In a perfect world with a humane prison system there might be some good arguments for letting prisoners take part in medical experiments, but in our world, where prison rape is an accepted joke, drug laws overstuff the cells and members of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School Ethics Board use Retin-A as a justification for injecting radioactive and carcinogenic substances into prison test subjects, there are not.

Punishing wrongdoers is the one area of government that should always run at a financial loss. Why? Because the power to do so must be used sparingly, only when absolutely necessary. And the only social problem prisons should solve is the problem of dangerous, harmful people running loose on the streets — not a lack of medical-test subjects, farm labor or anything else.