Spring 2005 Brown Bag Series

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 -- James C. (Jim) Anthony, Ph.D.
How IRB Decisions Can Increase Risk of Harm to Participants & Reduce Validity of Evidence: Case Studies

In this brown bag discussion, we will review some case studies of IRB decisions in which the legitimate exercise of the IRB's autonomous authority actually has resulted in an increased risk of harm to individual participants, or has compromised the validity of the study evidence. It is not claimed that the IRB decisions were the wrong decisions, but that they might not have been the only legitimate decisions from within the set of all possible legitimate decisions. By contemplating these case studies, the audience will be motivated to ask about checks and balances in the IRB review process, and a set of procedures that provides for checks and balances without compromising the integrity and independence of an IRB review process.

Jim Anthony, Ph.D., is Professor & Chair, MSU Department of Epidemiology. He came to MSU in October 2004 from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he was Professor with appointments in the Departments of Mental Hygiene, Epidemiology, and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (JHU School of Medicine). His degrees and research training are from Carleton College of Northfield, MN (BA, 1971), University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (MSc, PhD, 1977), and Johns Hopkins (Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, 1977-78). He had multi-year service on the IRB at Johns Hopkins, and has helped to set up IRBs in multiple overseas sites for cross-national collaborative research. Additional biographical details can be found at www.epi.msu.edu and at http://isihighlycity.com.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 -- Kristin Peterson, Ph.D.
The Tenofovir Trials in Nigeria: Agency, Knowledge and Science

Tenofovir is a drug currently being tested on sex workers as an HIV prevention technology in several countries including Nigeria. In early 2004, Tenofovir gained international attention when a sex workers union in Cambodia refused to participate in the trial, claiming that it was unethical. In a rare move, the government, which gave prior approval to conduct the trial, backed up the union’s claims, effectively shutting down a major clinical trial site. As AIDS activists around the world are networked via internet and international conferences, information is shared, expertise is developed, and interventions into trials are made in ways that have conflicted with traditional research paradigms. This talk represents preliminary research that will explore how people living with HIV in Nigeria are responding to the Tenofovir trial. The aim here is to explore unexpected relationships and practices that develop as a result of the rapid outsourcing of new molecules within a growing global clinical trial industry. Questions to be explored by participants include: How are transnational human trial subjects imagined in the research paradigm? What is the history of abusive clinical trials and why the advocacy for a civil society intervention? Will the challenges being put forth by the recipients of such trials actually begin to shape the very production and development of not yet available therapeutics for HIV?

Kris Peterson, Ph.D., is an anthropologist who currently studies the political economy of AIDS in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the DuBois-Mandela-Rodney post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. She is also an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 -- Panel Discussion
Ethical Issues Involving Military Medicine and Prisoners of War

This session is presented in conjunction with the newly formed MSU Medical Student
Medical Ethics Discussion Society (MEDS).

The prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been followed by further allegations that similar abuses have occurred in military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. To some extent the U.S. military has investigated these abuses and has made efforts both to punish wrongdoers and to put in place safeguards to prevent future abuses. However, one aspect of the problem that has remained poorly investigated is the specific role and responsibility of military physicians. Participants will consider what this state of affairs means for both the ethics of military medicine and the education of future physicians, some of who naturally will have careers in the military.

Gerald Schatz, J.D., Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and College of Human Medicine, will review those tenets of the Geneva Conventions that outline expected physician behavior in times of war and other armed conflicts.

Howard Brody, M.D., Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and Department of Family Practice, will mention recent cases which raise concerns about medical involvement in torture at Abu Ghraib and discuss related ethical issues.

Brigadier General Dean Sienko, M.D., M.S., Medical Director of the Ingham County Health Department and an Associate Professor in the MSU Department of Epidemiology, will draw from his experience as an Army Reserve medical officer in both Kosovo and Iraq to highlight the high level of professionalism expected of military officers and also of military physicians


 Wednesday, April 27, 2005 -- Sarah Goodfellow, Ph.D.
"Dirty Old Men": Medico-Legal Representations of the Senile Sex Offender at the Turn of the the 20th Century

The beginning of the twentieth century was a pivotal period in the relationship between the modern state and sexuality. Legislation against "indecent behavior" was debated and enforced, while doctors, psychiatrists, and sexologists aligned themselves with the state’s concerns about racial and social hygiene. Medical authorities called into courtrooms to testify about the nature of sexual deviance echoed and legitimized stereotypes, including the "dirty old man." This paper will explore the image of the senile sex offender as he was represented in medical and medico-legal literature, and then examine several legal cases brought against older men for sex offenses committed in Paris around the turn of the century. Participants will gain insight into the role medical professionals have played in identifying and defining sex offenders and potential sex offenders, and in forging a link between old age and sexual perversion. Participants should also come away with a greater sense of the variety of sexual relationships available to aging men in fin de siècle Paris.

Sarah Goodfellow, Ph.D., is Visiting Assistant Professor of Science & Technology Studies at MSU's Lyman Briggs School of Science. Her work examines medical and scientific representations of senescent sexuality during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and the U.S.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine and the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1 hour in category 1 credit per session towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award.  Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the activity.

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