Research ethics require action and vigilance

Boston-area colleges, however, are not the only prestigious institutions that have put convenience and the lure of fame and fortune over the code. In our own backyard, the University of Pennsylvania has earned a terrible record of using vulnerable populations to further their scientific quests. The death of Jesse Gelsinger in a gene-therapy experiment gone bad and the decades-long experimental reign of Albert M. Kligman, a noted Penn dermatologist who routinely used mentally challenged children, senior citizens, and prisoners in a dizzying array of research studies, are enough to shake anyone's confidence in the best and the brightest.

That less-than-stellar record makes Barack Obama's choice of Penn president Amy Gutmann as chairwoman of the national bioethics commission that much more cynical and troubling, even though the Gelsinger and Kligman cases occurred before Gutmann's watch. If Obama wanted a university or medical-school president to lead the commission, he would have sent a more powerful message by selecting someone from an institution with an unblemished record on ethics issues.

Medical excesses and breaches of research ethics are not just things of the distant past. They still occur and will continue until the penalties exceed the incentives to cut corners and break the rules. The national bioethics commission can foster that goal by not only explaining what went wrong 60 years ago, but by also aggressively pushing recommendations that punish transgressors, keep a vigilant eye on clinical trials both here and abroad, and encourage medical schools and others to bring research ethics out of the basement and into the classroom.

at ahornblum@comcast.net.