Law to Protect Subjects in AIDS Vaccine Trial

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Dear Forum,

Indian HIV vaccine trial researchers and activists may take not of the folloing

information from Botswana. Moderator.

" Human Rights Group Wants Law to Protect Subjects in AIDS Vaccine

Trial "

Associated Press (08.15.03)::Sello Motseta. Botswana's government has come under

fire from a human rights organization for not passing legislation to protect

people participating in HIV/AIDS vaccine trials. Alice Mogwe, director of the

Botswana Center for Human Rights, said little legal protection exists for those

participating in trials, and the board set up to ensure safe, humane trials has

no legal standing.

Experimental vaccine trials by the Botswana Harvard AIDS Partnership for HIV

Research and Education began earlier this year after successful tests on

animals. The vaccine study will involve 42 HIV-negative volunteers from Botswana

and the United States and is scheduled to last 18 months.

The government should enforce the principles of the previously ratified

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Mogwe said. That covenant,

which stipulates that no one shall be subjected to scientific experimentation,

is considered by many international lawyers and scholars to be one of the most

important international human rights treaties.

Botswanan officials maintain that the Drugs and Related Substances Act protects

the interests of the volunteers participating in the trials. " There is also the

Health Research and Development Committee, whose job it is to look after all

health-related research taking place in Botswana, to make sure it is done in a

scientific manner, " said Dr. Patson Mazonde, the country's director of health

services.

Mogwe's group belongs to the Community Advisory Board, established by the

partnership to ensure that trials respect the human rights, safety and dignity

of trial participants. The board cannot sue or be sued should anything adverse

happen to a participant, said Mogwe.