I have mentioned the book 'War On Children' earlier, by a husband and wife team in the U.S., who have been successful in getting exposure of the 'Good' work done by psychiatrists. They are both doctors and one is a medical doctor. This book raises the issue of 'quasi-eugenics'! Yes, I hope you don't tire of this kind of horror, which so many associate with the Nazis and Mengele.


They report on the Violence Initiative that is extracting genetic material from inner city ghetto children. They do this by a highly invasive method, which has potential for serious harm, called a spinal tap. The government has a stated research objective to see why these kids are statistically at risk of becoming violent criminals. I suppose that someone has wanted to put forward some alternative to the obvious. I am no longer amazed by the depths of perversion of the bureaucratic mind. However, they do provide much grist for the mill of the mind, don't they? Any student of sociology knows there are many reasons why inner city dwellers are 'at risk' of becoming violent. The cycle of violence IS a reality; and garbage in equals garbage out isn't only applicable to the computer world. It is somewhat off point but worthy of mention that the U.S. Congress knew years before the outlawing of lead based paints and the requirement for slum landlords to remove all lead based paints, that lead poisoning leads to mental deficiency.


Another book I read recently in reference to the ethics of medicine and research on seniors and Alzheimer’s patients might be of import in considering. This book had our good doctors referring to a better time when 'beneficial paternalism' was operative. I know of no such time in the history of nations that I would say was ruled by 'beneficial paternalism'. Maybe the best example of a major sort would be India under Asoka, over two thousand years ago. These doctors are interested in a free hand to use people as subjects in tests to try out their theories! The Douglas Institute of McGill University is notorious (Long after 60 Minutes exposed their work with the C.I.A., on the use of mentally ill schizophrenics there, and the use of LSD and other psychotropic drugs: it still goes on.) for their involvement in such research! The best I can do is quote them and their excerpt from The Medical Research Council of Canada 1987 Guidelines; this book is called 'Alzheimer's Disease Research' and is edited by Dr. Joseph Berg, Dr. Harry Karlinsky and Dr. Frederick Lowy, from 1991 and it says on pages 26-8 as follows; but first I would like to draw your attention to the point that this research is allowable if someone can say it 'is related to therapy' (e.g. ECT). Anyway you can make use of this quote and form your own opinion about 'the respect for life' and other ethical issues contemplated herein.


"These guidelines probably best reflect the current general outlook in Canada regarding research with human subjects. It must be stressed, however, that they are guidelines and not laws; they do not give licence to transgress the law. Ethical principles should be seen as operative somewhat beyond the point to which the law takes us, in that they address decision-making where the law permits various types of behaviors.


Guidelines or ethical rules may be seen as a kind of "fine-tuning" of legal rules. However, under no circumstances should they be interpreted as allowing a specific institutional review board, a research ethics board or an individual investigator to transgress the law. Ethics, then, as the Introduction to the 'Guidelines' (p. xi) states, should be viewed as 'principles of right conduct, guiding what ought to be done. Although they may reflect enduring moral values, ethics are not static but evolve with time and public perception.' Law, by its very nature, is slower to change; hence the ability of ethics to fine-tune practice. It may be noted, however, that a court may find that an implied term of an investigator's contract of employment is that he or she will observe rules of ethical conduct.


The philosophy of the 'Guidelines' is rooted firmly in the concept of individual autonomy. Historically, in many societies, benevolent paternalism has operated in practice, if not in law. However, this has almost entirely changed in recent years. Philosophically, this change may be seen as reflecting the rise of liberalism and western democratic-focused thought. There have been, as well, both atrocities and other untenable incidents that have focused public attention on the risks of unbridled medical research and helped to bring about this profound change (see Berg ET AL, this volume, chapter 20) {From page 337 and 8 of this book I include a portion of what I think is necessary.} Research involving human subjects has a history as long as that of the medical practice itself; indeed, they have always been interdependent {Along with other INTERESTED parties, i.e. the church who influenced medical practice before Paracelsus, to think in terms of demons and sins, causing illness.}. However, concerns about the need for protection of research subjects and definitions of what is or is not acceptable have largely been published since World War II, though, of course, sporadic references to these matters were made throughout history {Remember Lloyd the 95 year old from Lakeside, California, who I quoted earlier, has seen all these rationalizations and behaviors of doctors almost first hand.}. One notable example, referred to by Faden and Beauchamp (1986, pp. 152-153), is 'The Confessions of a Physician', a book published in Russian in 190r under' the name of V. Veresaeff, with English language editions subsequently being produced in London (1904) and New York (1916). It detailed shocking instances of abuse of human subjects, including children, and of deceit and disrespect concerning experiments purportedly for the sake of 'science'. Portions of this book which anticipated the horrors of Nazi 'experiments' that became public 50 years later, were reprinted by Katz (1972) in his major work, 'Experimentation with Human Beings'.


Ironically, {A pejorative use of words, I think.} the first comprehensive governmental guidelines designed to control innovative treatments and human experimentation were issued in Germany in 1931 and remained technically in effect during the period of the greatest abuse of unwilling human guinea pigs (Sass,1983). {Objection your honor - leading and perjurious again, I think ECT ranks right THERE.} These captives in Nazi concentration camps were subjected to the most barbarous experiments by 'scientists' {Note they think of themselves as scientists when it is to their interest.} investigating the effects upon humans of extreme physical, chemical and bacterial stressors {Stress is MOST important, and not the genetic 'research' Drs. Breggin expose in 'The War on Children'}. Twenty physicians were indicted in 1946 during the Nuremberg Trials and the judges promulgated ten basic principles (The Nuremberg Code) that must be observed in the conduct of research involving human subjects. The first principle states that the subject's consent is absolutely essential and must be voluntary {Like the Tuscegee Experiment?), competent, informed and comprehending {According to whom, if the facts aren't given, ego ECT?}. The Code goes on to describe the boundaries within which investigators may conduct their research and subjects may be asked to volunteer...


Although the Nuremberg Code was widely influential in emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in research, it was soon seen as inadequate in view of the burgeoning post-war research revolution. In response, the World Medical Association developed a more extensive and comprehensive code, which was adopted in I964 as the Declaration of Helsinki. While informed consent by subjects remained the cornerstone, an important distinction was drawn between therapeutic and non-therapeutic research {Therapy?}. The former, justified by its potential value for the subject, patient, ordinarily requires informed consent but consistent with patient psychology', this may be waived 'if the doctor considers it essential'; however, in such instances, 'the specific reason' for this should be stated in the experimental protocol for transmission to an independent review committee.' {I wonder if witchcraft or possessions is in my chart for this reason.} By contrast, purely scientific research, which is unlikely to benefit the patient or subject specifically, requires informed consent at all times. If the subject is incompetent, valid substitute consent is necessary…


In many countries, the involvement of government and quasi-government agencies to regulate research and ensure conformity with ethical principles followed recognition that the atrocities committed by the Nazis were unique only in the degree to which the human rights of research subjects were disregarded {And they don't consider ECT to be research, just therapy, like lobotomies, which are still being done!}... the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study... the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital case in which live cancer cells were injected into patients without consent... the Willowbrook State School case in which mentally defective children were deliberately infected with a mild strain of hepatitis...and with dire results is the Halushka v. University of Saskatchewan…


In relation to these developments, the 'Guidelines' (pp. 12-13) express the fundamental ethical principles of research as follows:


The Standing Committee believes that the basic ethical principle in research, as in health care, is respect for life. From this principle flow others: the concept of autonomy, the duty to beneficence, and the duty to justice.


Respect for life both justifies and limits research. As for beneficence, mankind may benefit, but individuals place themselves at risk. The benefits and risks of research must always be weighed. Justice must be exercised in allocating the anticipated risks and hoped-for benefits.


The burden of the enterprise should run with the benefit. Great care must be taken that research risk does not fall unjustly on the infirm, or the racially, economically or otherwise disadvantaged.


The assessment of the risk and benefit calls for a most careful study of the relevant data. Both the investigator and the institutional Research Ethics Board (REB) must access the risk to benefit ratio, bearing in mind that risks and benefits may accrue to different people and not be measurable on the same scale. The ratio must be clearly favorable before the proposal can gain ethical approval.


Upon institutional approval of the study, the subjects' participation may be invited, and they too must be able to make their own assessment of the balance between likely benefits and risks to themselves or others, and perhaps to those for whose welfare they are responsible.


The ethical challenge then is to decide in the light of principle what risks are justifiable and for whom, in relation to presumed gain. These dilemmas are the central focus of the Guidelines. The 'Guidelines' (p. 31) include the following observations on that issue: Research into disorders of the elderly pose special problems.


Research into Alzheimer's disease, for instance, may require affected subjects to be exposed to uncomfortable and above-minimum-risk procedures. Subjects may not themselves benefit from results of individual studies, and they may lack competence to give consent. Their guardians, whether 'de jure' guardians properly appointed, or de facto guardians such as family members, may not have legal power to give effective consent to invasive procedures {ECT is often approved by family who are told it is the only way, so as well as supposedly being therapy it might also NOT be considered as invasive}. Indeed, mentally and physically-disabled persons' legal protections are strengthened under the 'Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms', reducing the likelihood that provincial public hospital, mental-health or mental incompetency legislation would be construed to allow such research not related to therapy {again, note this}. Rights to integrity of the mentally-disabled protected by law and the Charter cannot be reduced or compromised simply upon the basis of decisions of REBs only courts have authority to approve invasive forms of management {‘Manageable' in the eyes of psychiatrists, who are the court’s experts,.}"


I suggest there is a pattern of behaviour by intelligent people who aren't so stupid as to make so many serious threats to humanity by simple oversight. I further suspect this pattern or through line isn't just in the psychiatric 'management' of social problems. The admission that the Nazi's weren't doing anything different than anyone else is a very telling part of the previous quote. How often is this covered in the schools and media? The Austrian leader who made big news by suggesting there were some decent S. S. officers is not being handled any fairer than the very kind of misinformation that Goebbels conducted.

yhthhtwryh

i love you Robert the Bruce
You're so sexy