In many instances, the drugs were given without independent advocates who monitor the safety of these children. Ed Gordon explores the controversy with two AIDS experts: Dr. Jonathan Fishbein of the National Institutes of Health and Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr. Mark Kline.
The story claims that Fauci “funded a study in New York City, where they treated AIDS kids with experimental drugs, twenty-five of those kids died during the research.”
The 25 deaths figure comes from a 2009 report by the Vera Institute of Justice, later cited in the story.
The Vera report followed an investigation by the organization, prompted by concerns about the participation of New York City foster children in various clinical trials related to HIV and AIDS. The report identified 532 such children who participated in 88 clinical trials and observational studies between 1985 and 2005.
“Many children — inside and outside of foster care and clinical trials — died because of complications of HIV/AIDS during the late 1980s and 1990s,” the report reads.
“Eighty of the 532 children who participated in clinical trials or observational studies died while in foster care; 25 of them died while enrolled in a medication trial.”
Some trials were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, but more than 80 percent of the children considered in the Vera review participated in trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, according to the report.
The report says that the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci has directed since 1984, and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development both provided funding for trials.
The Vera report did identify some issues, such as some child welfare files missing consent forms for trials, and made various recommendations.
In a 2005 report preceding the Vera review, The Associated Press found that a significant number of foster children who participated in such government-funded trials were not provided an often-required independent advocate.
