Former Soldier Denied Compensation for Damages in Army LSD TestsAuthor(s): Carol LevineSource: IRB: Ethics and Human Research, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Mar., 1982), p. 7Published by: The Hastings CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3564328 .

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March 1982

from diminished autonomy. To show respect for persons, then, is not only to treat them as autonomous agents; it is to recognize that degrees of autonomy exist, and that whatever may be the reasons for lessened autonomy, indi- viduals are entitled to appropriate protection. In the absence of coercing people, this does not properly count as paternalism, but is rather an ex- pression of another ethical precept: concern for the welfare of our fellow human beings.

I cannot resist a brief comment by way of rejecting Newton's suggested analogy with the University's Chief Fi- nancial Officer opposing an "undue" raise in faculty salaries on grounds that it would damage faculty mem- bers' ability to consent freely. To be compelling, an analogy should dem- onstrate relevant similarities. Philoso- phers' ability to concoct preposterous analogies has given our scholarly dis- cipline a bad name when it confronts serious issues. Newton's assertion that "no inducement is unduly high from the point of view of the person being induced" recalls the punch line of a well-known joke depicting a male-fe- male encounter (out of fashion in the feminist era): "We're only haggling over the price."

To conclude, I offer my response to the one positive suggestion Newton of- fers. She writes: "The work done by the notion of undue inducement in limiting payments to research sub- jects and restricting the pool of poten- tial volunteers, can be done by al- ternative restrictions." While initially promising in its own right, Newton's proposal simply fails to do the same work because of the implausible, al- beit noble, motives Newton identifies as desirable for prompting people to volunteer as research subjects.

Newton writes:

... We [Who are the "we"? Bio- medical researchers? The public at large? "Ethicists"?] do not really want the payments to serve as a suffi- cient inducement for the subject to volunteer .... We want, in short, subjects to volunteer for reasons that entail their willingness to attempt to understand the nature and ends of research generally and the protocol for which they volunteer in particu- lar.

Perhaps I am overly cynical. Perhaps my own experience has led me to reject altogether the relevance of motives (whether those of experimenters or subjects) in assessing the ethics of bio- medical research. In any case, I find Newton's idealistic hopes, as expressed

in the following passage, at odds with what empirical evidence reveals about the nature of biomedical research:

We do our recruiting not among the populace at random, but among those populations only that can rea- sonably be expected to volunteer for certain sorts of motives and with cer- tain expectations concerning the na- ture of their participation: specifi- cally, we want volunteers who are already interested in research, are capable of understanding the pur- poses of research in general and, to whatever extent is appropriate, the purpose of the particular investiga- tion.

I cannot quarrel with these noble aims. If I despair at their realization, it is in part because of the cynicism I readily acknowledge concerning the actual motives of most volunteers for

biomedical research. More impor- tantly, however, I fear that a great deal of research would grind to a halt if it were necessary to discover the motives of volunteers, and especially to ascer- tain that potential subjects are already interested in research. Let us real- istically strive for a high degree of in- formed consent, taking care not to offer excessive monetary temptations. To ig- nore the power of inducements, in the name of preserving subjects' auton- omy, may result in a crass disregard for their welfare.

REFERENCES 'National Commission for the Protection of

Human Subjects, The Belmont Report, p. 4. I am grateful to Robert J. Levine for calling this point to my attention.

2For an analysis of the concept and autonomy based on the notions of authenticity and inde- pendence, see Gerald Dworkin: Autonomy and behavior control, Hastings Center Report 6: 23-28, February, 1976.

UPDATE NCI Withholds Remainder of Straus Grant

The National Cancer Institute is withholding the remainder of a three- year grant it had awarded to Marc J. Straus for the study of cellular kinetics of clinical cancer chemotherapy at New York Medical College in Valhalla (New York Times, Feb. 11, 1982). Dr. Straus has been under investigation on charges of falsifying patient data in cancer research at Boston University Medical Center (see Thomas A. Shan- non, "Whistle Blowing and Counter- suits: The President's Commission and Fraudulent Research, IRB, August/ September 1981, pp. 6-7).

The remainder of the $910,415 grant to Dr. Straus was revoked because NIH officials said that a site visit found that Dr. Straus should have obtained ap- proval for the human tissue work, even though the grant money was not being used for clinical experimentation. The site visit team also reported "un- satisfactory progress" toward the goals of the grant, according to the Times.

Through his lawyer, Dr. Straus has denied that he has done anything to warrant the revokation of the grant.

The investigation of the BUMC charges is still incomplete.

Former Soldier Denied Compensation for Damages in Army LSD Tests

In the first case of its kind to come to trial, a federal judge has ruled that Cal- vin Sweet, a former soldier who partic- ipated in U.S. Army LSD experiments in 1957, is not entitled to the $3.9 mil- lion damages he claimed in a lawsuit. Federal District Judge Donald Porter said that Mr. Sweet, who now lives in Pierre, South Dakota, had filed his first claim against the government too late-in 1978, long after a two-year statute of limitations had run out.

The judge also ruled that Mr. Sweet had failed to prove that the drug exper- iments he participated in at the Army Chemical Warfare Laboratory at Edge- wood Arsenal in Maryland in Septem- ber 1957 has caused his mental illness, or that lack of follow-up care had wors- ened his condition.

According to government witnesses, Mr. Sweet did take part in Army exper- iments with drugs; but their records did not show whether he was given LSD, another drug, or no drug at all.

Mr. Sweet said that he intends to ap- peal the decision. Carol Levine

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