What Doctors Don't Tell YouA legal petition to stop growth hormone trials among children has been served in the US. The National Institutes of Health has been charged with abuse of children and the violation of regulations over the treatment of children in research.
The petition, served by the Foundation on Economic Trends and the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, argues that repeated radiological examinations, numerous injections of placebo and invasive physiological monitoring, which includes nude photography, amounts to a violation of the regulations.
The petition specifically calls for a halt to the placebo trials among children for recombitant human growth hormone (hGH). It is also testing short children with Turner’s syndrome.
The petitioners refute an NIH claim that the stress associated with the placebo injection could stimulate growth. Data obtained from the trials is also unlikely to yield new understanding of Turner’s syndrome.
The petition is the third filed by the Foundation in the past 18 months.
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD
