symposium

research on prisoners and other vulnerable populations

February 14-15, 2008
Old Main Chapel
Boulder, Colorado

The Center for Values and Social Policy, in coordination with the University of Colorado Law School and the Bioethics Center at the University of Colorado, Denver, is hosting a public symposium on the use of prisoners and vulnerable populations for medical research. This symposium is intended to address concerns raised in the recently released report by the Institute of Medicine that proposes that prisoners once again be considered an acceptable research population.

Description

On July 13, 2006, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report titled “Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners.” Citing the benefits of recent advancements in medical care to prisoners, the report recommends loosening restrictions on pharmaceutical testing of the prisoner population. Not surprisingly, this report has generated significant discussion among the general public and among ethicists.

The Center for Values and Social Policy in the Philosophy Department is taking this discussion to the next natural level. With the help of several organizations on and off campus (the Law School, the Bioethics Center at CU-Denver, the Ford Foundation, the Philosophy Department, the Sociology Department, the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, the President's Fund for the Humanities, The Center for Humanities and Arts) the Center is sponsoring a symposium on the Use of Prisoners for Medical Research. Our aim in coordinating this symposium is to respond publicly to the recent IOM report, to address the ethical aspects of the report under the scrutiny of a local and national audience, and to do so in a way that calls attention specifically to the question of disenfranchised minorities. At issue is the clash between advances in human achievement and injustice to poor and minority populations.

The symposium is scheduled to be held at the Center for Values and Social Policy on February 14-15, 2007. It will be conducted over the course of a day and a half, with two evening plenary talks and a morning plenary talk. Panel discussions will be scheduled for the middle of the day.

Our aim in conducting this symposium is to reach the local and broader community of academics and students working in this area, to provide an open forum for students of the University, and more broadly, to reach the large community of bioethicists and medical practitioners. This, we believe, will contribute to public understanding and discussion of this important issue.

Speakers:

• George Annas (Boston University School of Public Health)
• Dorothy Roberts (Law, Northwestern)
• Steven Miles (Ctr for Bioethics, U. Minnesota)
• Vanessa Gamble (Bioethics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins)
• Jamie Fellner (Director of the Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch)
• Leodus Jones (former incarcerated person, subject of experimentation, and outside reviewer of the IOM report)
• Jeffrey Metzner (Prof, CU-Denver and co-author of the IOM Report)
• Vera Hassner Sharav (Alliance for Human Research Protection)
• Harriet Washington (author of “Medical Apartheid”)

All Talks in Old Main Chapel

Download the flyer and post widely: Announcement Flyer

Download the schedule, including talk titles.

Other relevant items:

IOM Report (free online): Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners

NYTimes: Panel Suggests Using Inmates for Drug Trials
NYTimes Video: Prison Medical Research

Also, please attend and publicize our other events, on prison privatization and lifetime sentences for juveniles.

Conference Organizers:

Benjamin Hale

Alison Jaggar

Annette Dula

Dayna Matthew

GTA: Gustavo Oliveira

Questions? Contact the Graduate Student Assistant: Gustavo.Oliveira@Colorado.EDU