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Chicago Tribune
28 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
New paper sheds light on experience of Black prisoners in infamous Stateville prison malaria experiments
Much has been said and written over the years about controversial malaria research conducted on inmates at Illinois' Stateville Penitentiary starting in the 1940s. But at least one part of that story has been largely ignored until now: the role of Black prisoners in that research, which helped lead to the modern practice of using genetic testing to understand how individual patients will react to certain medications, according to the authors of a newly published paper out of the University of Utah. 'We want to highlight the stories of Black prisoners that participated in this prison research in the 1950s onward and give them their due,' said Hannah Allen, a medical ethicist and assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and first author of the paper, which was published as an opinion piece Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 'They haven't been properly acknowledged in the past, and their participation in these studies was really foundational in launching the field of pharmacogenetics and, later on, precision medicine,' said Allen, who recently completed her doctorate at the University of Utah. Starting in the 1940s, researchers infected inmates at the Joliet-area prison with malaria to test the effectiveness of drugs to treat the illness as part of a U.S. military-funded effort to protect American troops overseas, according to the paper. A University of Chicago doctor was the principal investigator. The inmates consented to being part of the studies and were paid for their participation. At first, the research was greeted with enthusiasm. In 1945, Life magazine ran a spread about it, featuring a photo of a Stateville inmate with cups containing malaria-carrying mosquitoes pressed against his bare chest. The first line of the story reads, 'In three U.S. penitentiaries men who have been imprisoned as enemies of society are now helping science fight another enemy of society.' But as the years passed, attitudes began to shift. Questions arose about whether inmates could truly, freely consent to participate in medical experiments or whether they felt coerced into them because of their often dire circumstances. At the Nuremberg trials, defense attorneys for Nazi doctors introduced text and images from the Life article about Stateville prison, though an Illinois physician argued at the trials that the prisoners in Stateville consented to being part of medical research whereas Nazi prisoners did not, according to the JAMA paper. In the mid-1970s, news broke about a study at Tuskegee, in which Black men with syphilis went untreated for years — news that raised awareness of ethical problems in medical research. News outlets also began publishing more stories about prison research, according to the JAMA article. The Chicago Tribune published an article in 1973, in which an inmate participating in the Stateville malaria research said: 'I've been coerced into the project — for the money. Being here has nothing to do with 'doing good for mankind' … I didn't want to keep taking money from my family.' The experiments at Stateville came to a halt in the 1970s. A number of protections and regulations are now in place when it comes to research involving prisoners. Since the 1970s, the Stateville research has often been discussed and analyzed but little attention has been paid to its Black participants, said James Tabery, a medical ethicist and philosophy professor at the University of Utah who led the new research, which was funded by the federal National Institutes of Health. For a time, Black prisoners were excluded from the studies because of a myth that Black people were immune to malaria, Tabery said. Later on, once scientists had pinpointed the drug primaquine as an effective medication for malaria, they turned their attention to the question of why 5% to 10% of Black men experienced a violent reaction to the drug, according to the paper. Ultimately, the scientists were successful, finding that the adverse reaction was related to a specific genetic deficiency. 'There are people all over Chicago today that are getting tested, that clinicians are recommending they get a genetic test before they get prescribed a drug because they want to make sure that their patient isn't going to have an adverse reaction to the drug,' Tabery said. 'It's really sort of powerful and interesting that you can trace that approach to doing good clinical medicine right back to this particular moment and place and population.' But Tabery and Allen also found that the Black prisoners were not treated the same as the white prisoners who participated in research at Stateville. For one, they weren't paid as much as the white prisoners, the rationale being that the white prisoners were infected with malaria, whereas the Black prisoners were given the drug but not infected with the disease — though some of the Black prisoners got very ill after taking the medication, according to the paper. Also, researchers didn't protect the Black participants' privacy as well as they did for other participants. They published certain identifying information about the Black participants, such as initials, ages, heights and weights, whereas participants in the previous research were represented with case numbers, according to the paper. Researchers also recruited the Black prisoners' family members for the study, which they didn't do with earlier participants, according to the paper. 'You see them just doing things with the Black prisoners that they're not doing with the white prisoners,' Tabery said. Also, though scientists made an important discovery through the research on Black prisoners, the episode also highlights the difficulty that can occur in translating discoveries into real life help for patients. Though the World Health Organization now recommends genetic testing to protect people who are sensitive to antimalarials, many of the people who would benefit most from such testing still don't receive it because of financial barriers, supply chain issues and a lack of training, according to the paper. 'What we found is when you sort of shift to what was happening to the Black prisoners, these other lessons you hadn't thought of as being derivable from Stateville suddenly do become apparent,' Tabery said.
USA Today
39 minutes ago
- USA Today
Unpacking RFK's lengthy social media post after firing vaccine committee members
Unpacking RFK's lengthy social media post after firing vaccine committee members Show Caption Hide Caption RFK Jr. expels entire CDC vaccine advisory committee Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. removed a 17-member panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that issues recommendations on vaccines. unbranded - Newsworthy A day after abruptly firing the entire committee that advises the federal government on vaccine safety, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would reconstitute it with 'highly credentialed physicians and scientists' amid backlash from his detractors about the terminations. In a long post on X on June 10, Kennedy criticized the process by which the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices recommends new vaccines, implying that "adequate safety trials" were not being conducted before recommending new vaccines to children, a notion that was strongly disputed by vaccine experts. Kennedy, who has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views, also said the new Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices will have no 'ideological anti-vaxxers' but that the committee will apply 'evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense.' 'The most outrageous example of ACIP's malevolent malpractice has been its stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children,' he wrote. Kennedy said a compliant American child receives more shots now from conception to 18 years of age compared to 1986, none of which required placebo-controlled trials. That was the year when the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was set up, protecting vaccine makers from liability and establishing a federal program to compensate individuals injured by certain vaccines. 'This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing,' he wrote. A placebo-controlled study is a type of clinical trial where one group of participants receives an active treatment, while another group receives an inactive substance, helping researchers to determine whether the active treatment is truly effective. But conducting placebo-controlled studies on vaccines that are improvements on existing vaccines presents ethical and practical challenges, say vaccine experts. 'If a vaccine for a serious disease (e.g., measles, polio) already exists and is proven effective, giving participants a placebo instead of the vaccine could expose them to preventable harm or death,' wrote Dr. Jerome Adams, the former U.S. Surgeon General under President Trump's first term, in a June 9 post on X. How do vaccines work? Medical experts explain. New vaccines always undergo a placebo-controlled study, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. But Kennedy's definition of placebo is different from FDA's, said Offit. Kennedy has sought to narrowly define placebos as salt water, said Offit, while the FDA defines it as an 'inactive substance.' 'A placebo may contain sodium sulfate or potassium sulfate or may contain sucrose, or it may contain an emulsifier – those are all generally regarded as safe,' said Offit. 'He doesn't regard them as safe.' HHS did not respond to USA TODAY seeking a comment on how Kennedy's definition differs from that of the FDA. Offit said Kennedy is a lawyer who has spent years suing pharmaceutical companies, and 'his job is to scare people about vaccines ultimately, so he can bring them back to court and sue companies,' he said. Meanwhile, in his announcement of the removal of the 17 members of the ACIP committee Kennedy said the purpose was to insulate the committee from 'conflicts of interest.'
Associated Press
42 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Experts call for action to prevent deaths at US police academies, citing AP investigation
A panel of experts called Wednesday for policy and cultural changes to prevent deaths linked to heat and exertion at the nation's police academies, and insisted that urgent action is needed to save the lives of recruits. The National Athletic Trainers' Association and the Public Safety Athletic Trainers Society convened the discussion in response to an Associated Press investigation that documented the deaths of at least 29 recruits over the last decade. The groups are drafting new guidance detailing best practices. AP found that most recruits died of exertion, dehydration, heatstroke and other conditions tied to intense exercise — often on the first day of training, during grueling defensive tactics drills or after high-stakes timed runs on hot days. Black recruits represented nearly 60% of those who died, a striking disparity given that federal data show Black officers make up 12% of local police forces. Many carried sickle cell trait, a condition most prevalent among Black Americans that increases the risk of serious injury following extreme exertion. Academies should begin screening applicants for the trait, a simple $75 test that has helped drastically reduce deaths among NCAA athletes, said Traci Tauferner, an athletic trainer who has worked for years with police officers. The screening would not disqualify applicants but rather give them and their instructors information they need to take precautions and monitor warning signs, she said. Academies must train instructors to recognize signs of heat stroke and sickle cell complications, create a culture where recruits can report concerns without retaliation, enforce hydration protocols, and modify training based on temperatures, she said. 'We cannot let these things slide,' said Tauferner, a member of a committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which also is studying the issue. She said academies should review their exercises to ensure they reflect what officers have to perform on the job, calling a widely used 1.5-mile run 'not a really relevant standard.' Tens of thousands of police recruits who attend academies annually are uniquely vulnerable because of the stress and physical demands they face with varying levels of staff and medical oversight, said Anna August, athletic trainer for the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia. She noted that no national standards govern academy training, which varies dramatically based on state laws and local practices. 'The task of preventing recruit injury or death sometimes slips through the cracks, and it's not because the instructors are neglectful,' she said. 'But they're overtasked a lot of times, and they don't have the preventive medical training to recognize something like an exertional heat illness.' Separately, a group that sets standards for law enforcement academies worldwide is working to develop new guidance aimed at preventing recruit deaths, its deputy director said Wednesday. The guidance will likely include standards on the type of medical personnel academies should have on scene to respond to injuries and the training instructors receive on health risks, said Brian Grisham, of the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. The group will consider recommending new minimum fitness standards for recruits when they enter and exit the academy and guidelines for pre-academy medical screening, he said. Grisham said his organization is trying to find consensus in a working group that includes the police chiefs' association, the leading accreditation commission for departments, and medical personnel who work in law enforcement. 'I think the goal is to make any improvement. If we can save even a small percentage, we're doing something worthwhile,' he said. 'The goal is to come up with some uniformity.' Grisham noted that while some academies have athletic trainers or paramedics on site to respond quickly to injuries during physical training, many do not. One recommendation, he said, could be increasing the use of athletic trainers, who have skills to prevent and respond to injuries.
