Children, Drug Research & Dollars

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

Are clinical drug trials involving children the right thing to do?

Perhaps you have heard the news, more drugs are now being tested on kids in the U.S. since a 1997 law was passed giving pharmaceutical companies greater incentive to do so. Some in the medical community, along with parents, question whether testing is focused more on dollars rather than children’s health.

Today’s Los Angeles Times features an article titled, “Putting Children to the Test” and it talks about the risks and dilemmas associated with having kids participate in drug testing.

An interesting point brought up in the article is that if a drug is being tested for the first time, how do you know what side effects may result? As an example, the article sites the drug Propulsid, which was involved in a study for gastroesophageal reflux in 1999. According to the FDA, 24 children undergoing treatment, died.

There is also quite a bit of information regarding the question of profiting from child drug testing. The Times article suggests, “establishing separate pediatric research facilities is a lucrative business move on the part of many hospitals.” Several U.S. children’s hospitals are reportedly creating such facilities.

There is a lot of good information in the article and I suggest you read it. The link will be below along with some other related articles you may not have seen before.

Coming from a medical perspective I hope I can understand correctly the “dilemma” which parents and doctors face. Do we give untested drugs to children or do we test the drugs on those children? In both cases we are potentially risking the child’s health and/or life. That’s two choices from a medical view. Now suppose there is another choice, let’s call that choice C.

In choice C, a child is raised in an environment in which they have never had a drug, quite possibly have never been in a hospital, and may very likely never be exposed to drugs unless a crisis situation arose that required their use. Is that child at greater or lesser risk when it comes to drug testing on children?

Here are some related topics that I was able to gather on the subject. The first is from the Boston Globe and asks, Should a Healthy Child Ever Be a Test Subject? A quote from the article reads, “The biggest question is whose children are being sought as subjects. Do those who profit from research volunteer their own children?”

The second is also from the Boston Globe and is titled, Drug Research on Children Raises Concerns. This article contains a questionnaire to help in asking about signing children up for a clinical trial. One of the questions is… “Is the researcher being paid by the drug maker to recruit or test my child? Does the researcher have a personal financial stake in the outcome of the tests?”

L.A. Time article link: Putting Children to the Test