Apparently committing illegal human experiments, lying to study subjects about the risks, and committing assault and battery against study subjects do not violate the North Carolina Medical Practice Act.
The North Carolina Medical Board refused last week to take disciplinary action against the three EPA docs involved in the illegal human experiments that have been conducted and that are still being conducted at the EPA gas chamber located at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The disciplinary action was originally requested by Steve Milloy and Dr. John Dale Dunn in June 2012.
Without explanation, the Medical Board stated,
While we know you may not agree with the decision, you can be sure it was reached after a fair and thorough evaluation.
We are only sure, of course, that this action says more about the Medical Board and its dubious investigation than it does about the evidence we presented.
I wonder how hard it would be to identify the conflict-of-interest between the Medical Board and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
The simple answer as to why the doctors did what they did and why the medical board did what it did.
Fear. They are very afraid of the government politicians, bureaucrats and agenices that control their livelihood.
Remember, a man who made a video that no one saw remains in prison while those whose actions led to four deaths in Bengazi are in control of the most powerful government on earth.
excellent comments. Sandy in particular has hit on a problem that occurs when professional ethics is corrupted by questions of Social Justice or post modernist/politically influenced agendas allow a little cheating on science and professional conduct for a political goal.
What’s a little cheating if the goal is some political ideal?
As Joseph Schumpeter said, the first casualty of idealism is the truth.
The AMA ethics people have inserted social justice in the ethics mix–and that distorts the judeo christian structure and inserts a collectivist socialist factor. However the way that science and professionalism really get’s corrupted is not hard to understand–follow the funding and power threads.
The conduct of the NC Med Board is similar to the OIG of the EPA and teh office of integrity responses.
However, i also wrote to the deans of the 6 medical schools across the nation doing these experiments, which were listed by Dr. Cascio, an epa physician in his declaration in the lawsuit–so far, no answers or responses.
The Medical Schools, the Medical Board are hoping that ignoring teh ethical/legal problems they have with human experiments that have faulty consents and put people at risk will pay off. Penn State did it with Sandusky, the administration did it with Benghazi–ignore, delay, delay and then say–that’s old news–move on, nothing to see here.
John Dale Dunn MD JD
Bill, in that case, they committed ethical malfeance by allowing false medical information to be published while knowing that it was a lie. This is not within the scope of the medical board.
I believe a basic explanation of the decision is due. This has all the trappings of a whitewash.
Actually, I suspect that the Docs. knew the EPA was talking through its hat. That would be the implication of the medical society exonerating the Docs.
Of course, you are correct, and you usually are, that the Docs. knowing that air pollution can cause instantaneous death at a non-negligible rate makes them criminals in the Nuremberg sense. Since there is no direct benefit to air pollution, informed consent would be a non sequitur.
Yikes! The state is supreme. The collective rules. I’ll have to check with my MD friends about this. I’d bet 95% of the population is unaware of this.
In other words, the Hippocratic Oath no longer needs to guide healthcare, under today’s new definition of medical ethics.
Bill… the docs knew they were lying to the patients about the risks. As physicians, they are not absolved of this crime because they were doing it as EPA employees.
Absolutely incredible. You clearly presented a case of conduct that violated all traditional ethical guidelines for the conduct of human experimentation that were developed as a result of the Nuremberg Trials. It still amazes me that this experiment and the informed consents got past any credible IRB.
The NC Medical Board states it adopted the AMA’s medical ethical guidelines [http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByChapter/Chapter_90.html]. The currently published AMA ethical guidelines for Clinical Investigation [http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion207.page?] are still those that appear to follow those traditional guidelines for human experimentation. But it is telling that the denial letter you received failed to provide any explanation for their decision.
What I fear/suspect is that they fell back on the AMA Principle Medical Ethics Preamble [http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/principles-medical-ethics.page] that was revised in 2001 when the AMA abandoned the Hippocratic Oath and moved towards following political agendas. Now, they advocate medical ethics as doing what’s seen as best first for society/public health, rather than their individual patients. What the AMA currently considers medical ethics is strikingly different from the original ethics of the profession [http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/43/1903principalsofethi.pdf]. These are the medical ethics, founded on the Hippocratic Oath, that us older medical professionals believed in when we entered medicine (and largely explains why so many doctors left the AMA and are leaving the medical profession under Obamacare and the single-party payer system). The AMA’s abandonment of true ethical medical practice is abhorrent and you’ve wonderfully helped to expose what is going on.
The eugenicists have been surprisingly effective in moving medical ethics and governmental health policies astray. Did you catch another Hastings Center press release issued last week calling for a complete overhaul of medical ethics surrounding human experimentation and clinical research, and for a new ethics for medical research be adopted (abandoning those that were developed as a result of the Nuremberg Trials for being outmoded)? [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/thc-epo012313.php] It said: “The longstanding ethical framework for protecting human volunteers in medical research needs to be replaced….” Frightening.
Mr. Milloy’s Syllogism in the case is straight forward – no quantum Mechanics or Relativity needed, just a simple “All men are mortal. Plato is a man. Therefore Plato is mortal.”
If no action is required for the doctors, (and I agree on that.) a fair and thorough investigation would lead to a statement that the EPA is off base. But then again we are talking about our corrupt institutions of higher education and medicine.
Steve, I don’t think it would be hard to establish connections between the Board and UNC. I’m more than a bit cynical about having the Medical Board actually find one of its union members guilty of malpractice.