Lowering Testing Standards in Third World Countries Essay -- HIV AIDS

Lowering interrogation Standards in Third human race CountriesABSTRACT Recently, Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizens wellness Research chemical group (PCHRG), charged the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) with sponsoring fifteen immoral HIV studies in sub-Saharan Africa. The trials are being conducted to determine if certain(prenominal) alternate medical exam procedures or a short course of treatment with AZT, zidovudine or other drugs prevent some mother-child HIV transmissions. (1) Since the control group receives all placebos rather than AZT, Wolfe claims that the tests give suboptimal treatment that will result in more than children contracting HIV and AIDS. (2) Public Citizens Health Research Group and others are calling for an immediate cessation of these significant experiments. Public Citizen raises an important moral question. (3) Is it morally permissible to lower testing standards for the Third World? Unlike PCHRG, I cont end that the answer to this question is yes, if the trials meet certain conditions. I explain both the set-back vanquish and Second outflank Method (FBM and SBM, respectively) of testing new drugs and then compare the two. Next, I fancy the FBMs impracticality in developing countries releases researchers from the moral obligation to use it. I then propose a new set of criteria the Second Best Criteria (SBC) that show if a test is moral or not. Finally, I betoken that imposing a developed countrys moral standards for clinical trials in the Third World is immorally insensitive to the needs and conditions sit in the latter area. Section 1In clinical trials in that respect are two different standard protocols for testing new drugs. The First Best Method tests the effects of a known drug (a benchmark), rathe... ...Biotechnology, vol. 11, pp. 135-143.Pederson, Daniel and Eric Larson, too Poor to Treat Newsweek, 28 July 1997, p. 60.Rath, Richard, Horton Hears the W.H.O. Dissonan ce, AIDS and Africa Resource page, 3 June 1996, http/www.way.net/ randomness/nyrb_ltr.html, pp. 1-3.UNAIDS HIV/AIDS The Global Epidemic, Press Release, 28 November 1996, http/www.us.unaids.org/highband/ instrument/epidemic/situat96.html, pp. 1-15. HIV/AIDS epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa, 3 July 1997, http/www.hiv.unaids.org/unaids/ reduce/factafr.htm, pp. 1-3. UNAIDS Announces New Clinical Trials for the Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission of HIV, Press Release, 9 July 1996, http/www.hiv.unaids.org/unaids/press/mtctpren.html, pp. 1-2No Author Listed AIDS in Africa, The Guide, 9 whitethorn 1996, http//www.guidemag.com/newsslant/aids.africa.html. pp.1-2