Does this shit give anyone else the creeps?

The movie Coma comes to mind here:

Use of Foster Kids in Experiments Varies
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Current regulations are adequate to ensure that foster children enlisted in federal medical experiments are protected, a Bush administration official said Wednesday.

"We are not aware of any changes that we believe need to be made," said Donald Young, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. "But if there are (problems) identified, we'd be very happy to consider them and make decisions on how best to proceed."

If children (much like American voters, hence the electoral college) are labeled as unable to make their own decisions concerning their well-being, then why the HELL is this even being allowed, let alone looked at and not viewed as inhumane.

Yes, this type of research is necessary sometimes...but its rather damned convenient that the test subjects don't have any protections under the law. Speaking of which:

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said prisoners are guaranteed more protections under the guidelines concerning clinical trials than foster children. Prisoners must have an advocate expressly appointed to represent their interests on local institutional review boards. Foster children don't have such an advocate appointed to look out for them, he said.

That is unless you are an embryo or fetus. Once again, it is proven that the right-wing's "Culture of Life" ends at birth.

Dr. Alan R. Fleischman, a top medical ethicist, told the panel that research on foster children can be conducted safely and ethically and that it would have been wrong to exclude foster kids outright from AIDS drug testing during the height of the epidemic in the 1990s.

"The only way to provide the best treatment to any child with HIV at that time was through the clinical trials - the drugs were just not available any other way," Fleischman said.

Get real, Doc...there's money to be made, GOP coffers to fill.

MRK 32.95 32.95 -0.06 (-0.18%) 10,865,700
LLY 60.36 60.36 +0.80 (+1.34%) 5,411,500
ABT 49.35 49.35 -0.06 (-0.12%) 3,220,000
PFE 28.44 28.43 +0.24 (+0.85%) 20,670,200
WYE 44.27 44.27 +0.04 (+0.09%) 4,231,600
BAXPR 55.75 55.75 +0.05 (+0.09%) 25,100

Red means panic, and no child below the poverty line will ever get access to any working meds that these hucksters put out.