Uninformed Consent: What Patients at "The Hutch" Weren't Told About the Experiments in Which They Died

Fresh on the heels of the Jesse Gelsinger gene therapy scandal, this report documents another case in which the biotechnology industry has experimented on humans without their consent. Patients died prematurely in two failed clinical trials at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center -- experiments in which the Center and its doctors had a financial interest. The patients and their families were never told about those connections, nor were they fully and properly informed about the risks of the experiments. Many stood a good chance of survival or at least prolonged life with traditional care. Instead, many actually died from the experiments -- sooner than they would have with no treatment at all.