Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland- questionable ethics


The Telegraphs article below, about clinical trials performed on homeless people and descriptions of  ambulance medics found guilty of killing their patients for commissions from funeral companies, reinforces the need for person-centered bioethics training for healthcare professionals – an aim of Bioethics International. —

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

21 people died after being given the vaccine The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.

The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.

Although authorities have yet to prove a direct link between the deaths and the activities of the medical staff, Poland’s health minister, Ewa Kopacz, has said that the doctors and nurses involved should not return to their profession. “It is in the interests of all doctors that those who are responsible for this are punished,” the minister added. 

Investigators are also probing the possibility that the medical staff may have also have deceived the pharmaceutical companies that commissioned the trials. The suspects said that the all those involved knew that the trial involved an anti-H5N1 drug and willingly participated.

The news of the investigation will come as another blow to the reputation of Poland’s beleaguered and poverty-stricken national health service. In 2002, a number of ambulance medics were found guilty of killing their patients for commissions from funeral companies. 

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[...] Doctors are Only Good And Their Ethics Should Never Questioned These doctors should be insulted, like Dr. Hotez, at the idea that vaccine professionals might be lying about vaccine risks or looking out for anything other than the health concerns of individual patients!Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland- questionable ethicsI mean, so what if the docs lied to homeless about the bird flu vaccine they were testing on them and 21 of them died, they got paid like almost five bucks! Besides… greater good and all that…. and don’t miss the blurb at the end about paramedics killing patients for funeral home commissions. Priceless. Published Wednesday, July 02, 2008 11:13 PM by Adventures in Autism [...]

Thanks for the information on the bird flu vacine, Jennifer. I can’t beleive doctors would do something as horrible as that!

We recently wrote an article on pandemics at Brain Blogger. Did you know that if a pandemic struck today it could result in 2 to 7.4 million deaths? So, how would the medical community react to this sort of outbreak? Would they would turn away patients in fear, and that lead be more death?

We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Kelly

[...] Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland- questionable ethics [...]

Actually, I don’t think this is so bad. It’s probably a misunderstanding of the sort that the clinicians asked the homeless people, “Do you want to take part in this study on Influenza A virus subtype H5N1? We will give you a little money, and it could potentially save millions or billions of people if an outbreak happens.” and the homeless people are like “oh, a type of flu, that’s nothing bad, and I really need that money for my child/alcohol addiction/lotto tickets”

Besides, even taking into account that they died, at least they managed to give back to society somehow. Homeless people, while sometimes they’re homeless due to just bad luck, are generally useless. I’d much rather they try out H5N1 vaccines on homeless people than on small children or the general public, eh?

Clover,

Homeless people shouldn’t even be homeless. Would you feel “generally useless” too if you somehow lost all your money, all your friends and family and became a drug addict tomorrow?

The focus should be more on helping such people become productive members of the society instead of using their inability to contribute to the society as an argument against their right to live.

The science behind viruses and vaccines is actually pretty weak on the fundamental level anyway. Scientists should first question their logic and chain of assumptions instead of basing more and more experiments on their illogical assumptions, which are likely to be wrong due to the lack of scientific rigor.

THE DANGER OF THE CODEX ALIMENTARIUS IN THE HANDS OF FEW PEOPLE, FIRMS, ORGANISATIONS, POLTITICS AND GOVERNMENTS………We must STOP this as citizen Worldwide.

Velp the Netherlands 12 July 2009,

Dear Friends,

As Beekeeper in Europe in a small country as the Netherlands I see in the near future but also now today a lot damage from Chemical- and Pharmaceutical Firms Worldwide because our Governments make to bad mistakes.

Also I ask you all to start with…
“Kill the Poison and safe the insects, fish, ambibians, birds, animals, the live in the soil, the water and the air, also the plants, bush and trees but also safe your Beekeepers and their ‘Pollinators’ the honeybees and their endconsumers of all kind bee-products like pollen, honey, propolis, royal yelly because we find a lot bad parts in this products……It can make human people infertile, sterile, bring them heartproblems but also cancer.

STOP with use products like Roundup (et al) with Glyphosate and their Metabolite AMPA…….We find it in the air, the water, the soil also in our groundwater-drinkwater and in our food……..As POISON.

Did you know that plants, bush and trees with yello flowers give in the most case PA’s Pyrrolizidine Alkaloïden……It give human people when they eat this to much) cancer is that what we will?
Fine Dust is bad for your DNA and it give cancer. PAK’s give cancer, also Poison in the Agriculture.
It is for me the rason to give since the year 2005 no bee-products to other people or sell this products.

I use the Beecolonies to help the Environment, the Biodiversity and the Pollination of plants, bush and trees.

Ask other people to give a reaction on my e-mailaddress hans.v.d.broek@planet.nl

Best regards,
Hans van den Broek

the use of face masks and boosting your immune system by taking lots of vitamin-C is still an effective way of preventing the spread of the any type of Flu virus. From Avian Flu, Swine Flu and the common Flu.

our village is always visited by migratory birds coming from other countries. we are advised no to get near them because they might be carrying the Bird Flu virus.

Clovers an idiot!

I’m very embarassed that Clover thinks this way. It shows an enormous lack of perspective, empathy and understanding of much more than society. Society is merely a construct placed upon nature. It is an artificial definition of community and based as it is 100% on a capitalist model, undermines the most basic respect for life.