According to the Associated Press, a recent review found that several government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades. The problem is these children were used as guinea pigs to test out different medications for AIDS without anything in place to look out for their well-being.

The practice ensured that foster children — mostly poor or minority — received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

The research was conducted in at least seven states — Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas — and involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records.

Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

In one study, researchers reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.

[Read more: source]

I am all for researchers finding a cure for AIDS but not at the expense of foster children losing their lives. I believe those children should have had SOMEONE other than the state looking after their well-being.  Do you think those children should have had someone or an organization to make sure they were safe taking these drugs?

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