Johns Hopkins faces $1B lawsuit by research subjects who were infected with STDs decades ago

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

Johns Hopkins faces $1B lawsuit by research subjects who were infected with STDs decades ago
Apr 1, 2015, 6:11pm EDT Updated: Apr 2, 2015, 9:43am EDT

Sarah Gantz Reporter-
Baltimore Business Journal

See correction at end of article.

Johns Hopkins will vigorously oppose a $1 billion lawsuit filed Wednesday by more than 700 family members and research subjects who were infected by sexually transmitted diseases during 1940s and 1950s government experiments in Guatemala.

The lawsuit filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court alleges that Hopkins, as a leading authority on venereal disease at the time, played a key role in a government study of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala.

The suit, filed by Baltimore law firm Salsbury, Clements, Bekman, Marder & Adkins LLC on behalf of 774 plaintiffs, names Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins University, the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins Health System. It also names the Rockefeller Foundation and Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co., a New York pharmaceutical company.

Hopkins officials reject the suit’s claims and say the institution did not conduct or pay for the government study. Hopkins doctors served on a government committee that oversaw funding for the study, officials said. Robert Mathias, a lawyer with DLA Piper and Hopkins’ lead counsel, described the suit as baseless and said he will likely move to dismiss the case on statute of limitations.

Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2015/04/01/johns-hopkins-faces-1b-class-action-suit-by.html

[closeupready]

1. K&R - no respectable institution or medical facility should have participated in any way.

[cstanleytech]

2. True but I wish them luck still in this suit even though I doubt they will win. nt

[cosmicone]

3. Trial lawyers chasing another ambulance

It will be settled. The lead plaintiffs will get $25,000 each, rest of them a chocolate chip cookie and a coupon for 20% off on future medical care.

The lawyers will get $200 million.

Great system we have.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Johns Hopkins sued for role in Guatemala STD experiments

Johns Hopkins sued for role in Guatemala STD experiments
Thursday 2 April 2015 at 12:14 PM ET by Laura DeGeer

JURIST - Hundreds of individuals on Wednesday filed suit [complaint, PDF] for medical malpractice against Johns Hopkins University [university website] for its role in government medical experiments that took place in Guatemala in the 1940s and 50s. During this time, individuals were deliberately infected with venereal diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhea, without their consent. The individuals were told that they were undergoing "routine medical tests" and that the medication they were being administered was "for their own good." The experiments were allegedly targeted at "children, soldiers, prison inmates, psychiatric hospital patients, and orphans." The suit was filed on behalf of 774 former research subjects and their families and seeks $1 billion in damages. According to the complaint, officials at Johns Hopkins had "substantial influence" over the studies, including advising the federal government on how to spend research funds. Specifically, it alleges that Johns Hopkins, along with other named defendants "participated in, approved, encouraged, directed, and aided and abetted human subject experiments in Guatemala."

News of these experiments came to light in 2010 [NYT report]. It was closely followed by an apology by Barack Obama [Reuters report] to the president of Guatemala and a lawsuit [JURIST report] on behalf of seven Guatemalans who claimed that they had been the subject of non-consensual human medical experimentation by the US Public Health Service [official website]. That challenge was dismissed [JURIST report] by a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website], as the US government is specifically exempt from liability for torts that occur outside of the US. Although the presiding judge acknowledged that "the Guatemala Study is a deeply troubling chapter in our Nation's history," he found that the court had no authority to provide relief. While news of the experiments came out in 2010, the specific details of the experiments remained hidden until the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues published its report [text] in 2011.

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2015/04/johns-hopkins-sued-for-role-in-guatemala-std-experiments.php

[DeSwiss]

5. The attitude of using people as guinea pigs was prevasive for a time.....

...and it seemed to really ramp up after we got all the ''new'' Nazis on our payroll after WWII. Now it's simply allowed to be carried out directly by the companies after they've conducted their own research (like MONSANTO, DuPONT. DOW, etc.) as long as they say it's okay!

- Because who's gonna stop 'em? Congress? Ha!

K&R

The St Louis Experiments

Unethical Human Experimentation In The United States

Government Secret Experiments

Project MK-Ultra

Nazi Style Human Experimentation By U.S. Government

Geo-Engineering Whistleblower ~ Ex-Military ~ Kristen Meghan

In Our Backyard - The Monsanto Corporation


Excerpt from: Unethical Human Experimentation In The United States

In 1941, at the University of Michigan, virologists Thomas Francis, Jonas Salk and other researchers deliberately infected patients at several Michigan mental institutions with the influenza virus by spraying the virus into their nasal passages.{19} Francis Payton Rous, based at the Rockefeller Institute and editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, wrote the following to Francis regarding the experiments:


"It may save you much trouble if you publish your paper... elsewhere than in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The Journal is under constant scrutiny by the anti-vivisectionists who would not hesitate to play up the fact that you used for your tests human beings of a state institution. That the tests were wholly justified goes without saying."{20}