AHRP- Psychiatrists and the University of Minnesota Must Be Held Accountable for Research Misconduct

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:53:46 -0400

From: AHRP <ahrp@ahrp.org>

To: Infomail1@ahrp.org

 ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)
Advancing Honest and Ethical Medical Research
www.ahrp.org

FYI and ACTION

I have just signed a petition urging Mark Dayton, Governor of Minnesota to appoint an independent, external panel of experts to conduct an investigation into gross medical research and clinical care misconduct by psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota who put their financial interests above the life of a patient in their care. http://chn.ge/13TtenX
Background: In November 2003, a court ordered independent assessment confirmed that Dan was psychotic, “lacked capacity to make decisions regarding neuroleptic medication. ”  Instead of acute standard care at the hospital, Dan was enrolled into a commercial, market promotion drug trial by psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota who coerced Dan with the threat of involuntary commitment—i.e, incarceration—to get him to agree to be a subject in AstraZeneca's Seroquel trial.

The psychiatrists and the University had significant financial interests in signing up patients as subjects.          

Dan was enrolled over the objections of his mother, Mary Weiss, and his mental condition quickly worsened into acute paranoid psychosis.  For months Mary tried desperately to get her only son out of the dangerous experiment, warning the psychiatrists that Dan’s condition was deteriorating and that he was in danger of killing himself.

The psychiatrists, Dr. Stephen Olson and Dr. Charles Schulz, refused to listen to Mary Weiss' pleas to withdraw her only son from the trial that clearly endangered his life. 
On May 8, 2004, Dan committed suicide by mutilating himself with a box cutter, so violently he nearly decapitated himself. http://markingson.blogspot.com/ 

More recently, evidence of misconduct and serious privacy violations in psychiatric studies at the university have emerged, suggesting that other research subjects may have died or suffered serious injuries, or that they have been mistreated in other ways. Eight bioethicists at the University of Minnesota itself have called for an external investigation, yet the university still refuses.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49659724/U-of-M-Board-of-Regents-Markingson-Letter

Dan Markingson’s  case has garnered outrage from a growing list of prominent physicians, bioethicists, health law specialists, medical humanities faculty,  and concerned citizens who have joined the call for an investigation by signing the petition headed by Jerome Kassirer, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Center.  See partial list of petition signers

Please add your name and sign the petition urging the Governor of Minnesota to appoint an independent, external panel of experts to conduct an investigation into gross medical research and clinical care misconduct at the University of Minnesota. http://chn.ge/13TtenX

Vera Sharav