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Charles Robb, Sen. VA...
Oliver North, Sen. VA...
Most of the country's 2.3 million VA patients are poor or mentally ill. And over the decades, many have signed up for experiments after doctors suggested that it was the only way they could receive meaningful help. Now, however, those methods of obtaining recruits for psychiatric experiments are undergoing a radical change, one that may transform the way schizophrenia is studied in years to come. This summer the National Institutes of Health rebuked the University of California, Los Angeles for serious "deficiencies" in setting up schizophrenia experiments that UCLA runs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West...
...different UCLA-VA experiments, all of which are federally funded and housed in the West Los Angeles center, are under investigation. In one, "Management Risk for Relapse in Schizophrenia," veterans were placed on lower than usual dosages of antipsychotic drugs. All lived away from hospital supervision and were said to be monitored weekly. However, the experiment was envisioned to follow patients with "continuing psychotic symptoms" and especially sought out those in "relative remission" with "a potential for demonstrating a relapse." In a letter to UCLA in April, the NIH's Office for Protection from Research Risk demanded verification that human...
...presented to protect the rights of the mentally ill? "People with schizophrenia have information-processing deficits. They often have trouble absorbing information," says Dr. Robert Liberman, head of UCLA's Clinical Research Center, who presides over all of the school's schizophrenia projects, including those under scrutiny at the VA in West Los Angeles. He contends that reforms that demand clear and more detailed risk information will create a chokehold of paperwork. Liberman argues that patients can be informed of risks in conversation, without resorting to intricate documents. Critics reply, however, that verbal consent protects no one save the researcher...