Human Experimentation

Four senior doctors at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot and the Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera were arrested yesterday on suspicion of carrying out hundreds of illegal experiments on elderly patients without their consent. The doctors - including Shmuel Levy, deputy director of Kaplan-Hartzfeld, who was responsible for Hartzfeld; Nadya Kagansky; and Alona Smirnov - are suspected of wrongful death through negligence, abuse of helpless victims, aggravated assault, fraud, violation of a statutory obligation and interference in an investigation.
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court yesterday extended the remand for Levy and Kagansky by three days and put Smirnov under house arrest for five days. A fourth suspect was released. Police searched the homes of all four suspects and confiscated documents.


The report sharply criticized the hospitals' Helsinki committee for human experimentation, saying that by approving inappropriate experiments, it failed in its mandate to protect the public interest. The report also blasted the hospital administration for failing to do anything about the flawed procedures, despite receiving complaints and information about what was going on in the hospitals. Committees to control experimentation with human subjects were established in hospitals in accordance with Health Ministry protocol implementing the Helsinki Accord signed in 1964, which came in response to human experiments conducted by the Germans in World War II. The comptroller found that experiments approved by the Helsinki committee included genetic experiments and research studies involving drugs not yet certified for use in Western nations. The comptroller's report features a laundry list of grave oversights and continuous negligence on the part of the Health Ministry and public hospital management regarding their supervisory role in the experiments.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772450.html