Comments

  1. stewart says

    There are no excuses if your claim to authority (and power) is (as Ophelia, among others, keeps trying to hammer home) that you are morally perfect in a way that is independent of any changing mores or Zeitgeists.

  2. Tsu Dho Nimh says

    “Old medical records show that 2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

    There is no evidence that consent was ever sought, nor any records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result.”

    WTF! The TaT (toxin anti-toxin) diphtheria vaccine was tested in New York city in the early 1920s. Glenny’s toxoid was developed in the mid to late 1920s, with adjuvant added in the late 1920s. (in other words, experimentation was pretty much over)

    In the 1930s, diphtheria was the #4 killer of children in the UK. Vaccines given to children were not experimental, they were trying to keep them from dying of diphtheria.

    If the children were in a care home, the home had the legal right to administer medical treatments, including vaccines. Consent from whom?

  3. hemlock says

    #3 “If the children were in a care home, the home had the legal right to administer medical treatments, including vaccines. Consent from whom?”

    Their mothers, those ones that if they couldn’t make donations were forced into indentured labour for three years to atone for their sins? Those mothers that had their children simply torn away from them?

    There is also a huge difference between being the unknowing and unwilling subject of experimentation, and poorly run experimentation at that with the outcomes for those children lost and medical care, meant to improve health or treat illness. I believe vaccines are a good, but if saying experimentation was all but over, why pick a group of uniquely vulnerable children who were poorly treated, often suffering from malnutrition and when they died their bodies were dumped in septic tanks for further studies or studies on different vaccines? Also experimental vaccines (and drugs and medical devices) are not benign things. They might fail to work, they may have serious side-effects, some subjects might get placebos and be left vulnerable. That’s why research should be properly conducted and consent obtained from the person, their parent, or a guardian concerned with their welfare (not applicable in this case) depending on age and ability to understand the ramifications and give consent.

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