|
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
Be sure to get all four
VA Watchdog dot Org
RSS feeds --
Daily VA
News Flashes
House CVA
Veterans' News
Senate CVA
Veterans' News
VA Press
Releases
Download your
free copy of the
2008 VA benefits
handbook here...
|
Printer-Friendly Version
VA HOSPITAL RELEASED VET WHO REFUSED TO
PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH -- His widow is demanding
answers from the VA as to whether human research
testing is taking a priority over the health care
of veterans at its hospitals.
Joe Fitzgerald
For more about VA research, use the VA Watchdog
search engine ... click here ...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearc
h.php?q=research&op=and
Story here...
http://washingtontimes.
com/news/2008/aug/22/hospital-releas
ed-vet-who-refused-study/
Story below:
-------------------------
Hospital released vet who refused study
Audrey Hudson
An Army veteran seeking treatment for his sudden loss of motor skills was
turned away from a veterans hospital in the Bronx, N.Y., in May 2007 after
he refused to participate in a human subject experiment on Alzheimer's
disease.
Joe Fitzgerald, 74, died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - the human form of
mad cow disease - less than a month after being dismissed without
diagnosis from James J. Peters VA Medical Center.
His widow is demanding answers from the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) as to whether human research testing is taking a priority over the
health care of veterans at its hospitals.
 "I
want them to be held accountable for this, to prevent this from happening
to someone else," Aimee Fitzgerald said. "Nothing could have saved Joe,
but the care there was hateful and incompetent."
Mrs. Fitzgerald said the research study doctor, Christine Bergmann, told
the family that her husband's participation in the study would enable
researchers to make a quicker diagnosis of his condition.
But VA officials said Dr. Bergmann did not have the authority to offer a
diagnosis.
"[The study] has very little to do with their diagnosis, and it is not
consistent with what occurred," said MaryAnn Musumeci, director of the
Bronx hospital.
"That's mind-boggling. That's not true," Mrs. Fitzgerald said. "Dr.
Bergmann made it very clear to us that the benefit of signing up for the
study would be that she would develop an individual profile of Joe that
would help them to arrive at a diagnosis faster."
The VA made several officials available for comment, but not Dr. Bergmann.
VA officials and the Fitzgerald family also differ over the circumstances
of Mr. Fitzgerald's discharge and whether the hospital provided care.
Miss Musumeci said Mr. Fitzgerald was admitted only for testing and
clinical evaluation and that he was referred back to his physician at
Castle Point VA Hospital for further care and testing.
"He was released because his work-up was complete. We did all the tests we
could have done," Miss Musumeci said.
In an interview with The Washington Times, VA officials said they knew Mr.
Fitzgerald was suffering from a rapidly debilitating disease.
Asked why the hospital released instead of treating the veteran, Miss
Musumeci said, "He was in need of hospice care, and that is what Castle
Point provides."
Castle Point VA Hospital, a part of the VA Hudson Valley Healthcare System
in Dutchess County, N.Y., does not identify itself as a hospice facility
and does not advertise its hospice care among its patient services.
Mrs. Fitzgerald said she was advised to keep future testing appointments
with Castle Point and that the Bronx hospital never recommended hospice
care or said they knew her husband's health was deteriorating.
Mr. Fitzgerald's discharge papers stated that he was in stable condition.
The Bronx VA hospital incident is the latest to raise questions about the
ethics of human subject research experiments conducted at VA facilities
nationwide.
A recent investigation of experiments conducted at an Arkansas veterans
hospital uncovered rampant violations, including missing consent forms,
secret HIV testing and failure to report more than 100 deaths of subjects
participating in studies.
Moreover, Iraq war veteran James Elliott told a congressional committee in
July that he sought treatment from the VA for post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) and instead was persuaded to join a smoking-cessation
study. While taking a smoking-cessation drug, he suffered a psychotic
episode.
Mr. Elliott said the first doctor he visited at the Central Arkansas
Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock to seek treatment for PTSD
"wasn't concerned about my day-to-day life. ... He wasn't concerned with
my wartime experiences. He wasn't concerned about if I was going to make
it home safely after the appointment."
Arthur Caplan, one of the nation's premier medical ethicists and director
of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the
first obligation of any caregiver is to treat the patient.
"It is only when there is no therapy, or the therapy that is available is
of doubtful utility, that someone can be recruited to research," Mr.
Caplan said.
"Every researcher and every institution that does research must be sure to
make an accurate diagnosis of a patient, to then offer them whatever
therapy is available at the institution, to give them all their options in
terms of treatment anywhere else and then and only then to pursue the
possibility of trying something new in a research study," Mr. Caplan said.
"No one should ever be penalized for failing to volunteer for a study,
ever," Mr. Caplan said.
"The goal of any medical encounter must be first and foremost to provide
the latest and best care when care is available," Mr. Caplan said. "The
chance to participate as a subject in research has to take a secondary
role to receiving care as a patient."
Miss Musumeci, director of the Bronx hospital and a registered nurse, said
participation in the studies is routinely offered to patients seeking care
at the VA facility, including healthy patients who may be admitted to
studies as control subjects.
Mary Sano, the Bronx hospital's director of research, said that "the
opportunity to participate in research is widespread" and does not
interfere with clinical treatment.
"The research team is completely independent of the clinical team, and the
clinical team has priority and determines if a person is approachable,"
Miss Sano said. "If they say no, the research team goes away."
Miss Musumeci said that many hospital patients welcome the opportunity to
participate in studies because "they appreciate the opportunity to stay
busy."
Mrs. Fitzgerald said the VA researchers wanted her husband to enroll in
the Alzheimer's experiment to observe the natural and ravaging course of
the disease and his eventual death.
Vera Sharav, president and founder of the Alliance for Human Research
Protection, a patient-advocacy group, said the circumstances faced by the
Fitzgerald family are "not unique."
"You come to a hospital in critical need and you want care, even if you
are not cured, and instead they say they are going to observe the
degeneration and death?"
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
Don't forget to read all of today's VA
News Flashes (click here)
Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage
email Larry
(go
back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page) |
Military
Medical Malpractice
Legal
Network
VA Watchdog Stuff...
cups, hats, shirts...
click on item to order
and support the site.
|
