Posted on 12/14/2002 7:29:23 AM PST by pseudo-justin
Edited on 05/11/2004 5:34:02 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The herpes vaccine trial for which St. Louis University gets $37 million is a perfect model of experimental design. Both experimental and control groups engage repeatedly in the dangerous behavior that results in a serious infection.
The experimental group is treated with a vaccine known to protect against the infection. The control group is given an ineffective vaccine. The study determines which group will get higher rates of the incurable infection, which not only affects the subjects but can result in brain damage or death to their offspring.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
St. Ignatius pray for us...
Really don't have to say anything else.
Besides the last sentence says it all: ** Wouldn't teaching chastity be a more effective, ethical, and appropriate way for a Catholic university to protect young women from this serious infection?**
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Finally, the experiment is reminiscent of the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis. Half of the young women engage in behavior that, for the good of the experiment, the scientists expect will result in incurable infection. But these women will not receive the protective treatment, and therefore will be at risk of passing the brain-damaging virus to any future progeny.
Does anyone have any info about the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis?
Briefly, this: In the 1940s (?), people who were infected with syphilis were deliberately denied the then best available treatments (or in fact, any treatment at all) in order to carefully monitor and document the ultimately fatal progression of the disease. This sort study is morally reprehensible in and of itself; to deny effective treatment of a fatal disease is not far removed from murder. Even worse, the study subjects were deliberately chosen because they were "black", and in no way shape or form gave anything resembling informed consent. The study subject of this article isn't quite as bad, but it's close.
The more I learn, the more absurd this all appears.
well, the consent of the subject is necessary for experimentation to be morally permissible, but consent is not sufficient. For an individual to consent to an act of self-mutilation, or to deliberately expose oneself to a potentially fatal disease, is also wrong by virtue of the object of the act to which the subject consents..
OK, so nobody is being forced to get herpes, we are only asking you to ask for it, and we are only taking those who need the money bad enough!
As you say, not quite the same, but close enough to be damnable nonetheless.
Lawrence Biondi SJ
Class/Title: President
Department: President's Office
Status: Faculty/Staff
Email biondi@slu.edu
Telephone: (314) 977-7777
Building: DuBourg Hall
Room/Floor: 206
Campus: Frost Campus
http://www.slu.edu/html/peoplefinder_detail.php?uid=BIONDI@SLU.EDU
Thanks for posting the e-mail address.
Ok folks, time to put some hard questions to Fr. B.
I think I would go farther than just say "seem hypocritical", condoning activities that are grave sins in and of themselves puts this university in the role of pimp by providing students for sexual medical experiments and getting paid for it.
This is from the universities site:
What does it mean to have a Jesuit Education?
"A SLU education integrates thought and action, values and facts, compassion and fulfillment. Faculty members supplement the multidisciplinary core curriculum through mentoring, focusing on issues such as adjusting to university life, the tension between responsibility and freedom, and where to find support systems on campus. Together these initiatives make the SLU experience effective and comprehensive by helping SLU students create lives that are rich and fulfilling."
I read this statement three times and I am still trying to connect the topic sentence to the paragraph that followed.
Under Student health and Counseling services right beneath Trauma, rape and alcohol is procrastination. If this is a health concern than I have a terminal illness, funny I keep putting off seeing a doctor about it.
One of their organization is the "We & God Spirituality Center." Besides using grammar that is so bad that even I flinched when reading the name, I guess it was nice of them to include God but I noticed here he only gets second billing. Not much of a surprise that the prominent books for this (off) center is by Anthony de Mello, S.J. This theologians writings have been condemned by Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
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