Federal government experimented on premature babies

BabyDreshan.jpg


Federal government experimented on premature babies. As part of a controlled experiment on 1,316 babies, oxygen monitors were intentionally altered to provide false readings to hospital caregivers so oxygen levels would not be manually adjusted according to babies’ needs. As a result, those getting high levels developed vision problems and those getting low levels developed brain damage. Some died. That was in 2006. Since then we’ve decided to give these heartless bureaucrats total control of the nation’s healthcare system.

J.P. Travis: Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976 graduate of University of Michigan, father, grandfather, husband, founder and CEO of Travelyn Publishing (http://www.travelynpublishing.com/), and passionate anti-government believer in individual liberty.

View Comments (46)

    • And you are using a common tactic of the left: indict the source of the story when you cannot indict the facts of the story. I'm no fan of Ralph Nader (because I loved the Corvair) but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Ralph Nader says Obama should be impeached. So do I, but by your logic I would have to defend Obama in order to disagree with Nader.

      Sorry. Breaking medical equipment gauges to keep hospital caregivers in the dark has no place in medicine.

      • This is agenda driven Progessive/lTort-bar/MSM concoction. I'm no doctor, but get your head out of your ass.

        I'd have more information for you, but MY SOURCE HAS BEEN ON CALL WORKING ON PREMIES FOR THE PAST 24 HOURS.

        • Your source who "read the study" and magically telepathically decided medical gauges were not modified? Yeah, that's a great source.

          Meanwhile, at least I can find my ass with both hands.

          • I'm done. I dropped some knowledge on you and it bounced off. That's ok.

            I'll stand here and you go over and there with Progressive groups funded by George Soros, Ralph Nader, some plaintiffs lawyers and the MSM.

            If that cabal of lefties came together on anything else, would you believe it? Give a little niggling doubt? Make you wonder if there might be something going on.

            I thought this site was about calling out the media when they get it wrong, especially based on the Progressives view of things.

          • "If that cabal of lefties came together on anything else, would you believe it?"

            If they came together on anything I thought was the truth, I would believe them. The truth is the truth, regardless of who you hear it from. Ralph Nader has demanded the impeachment of Obama and the decriminalization of drugs. I agree with him on both issues. Am I supposed to change my mind because it's Ralph Nader?

            You didn't so much drop truth on me as drop an unverified opinion of some doctor who read the study. I can read the study. Anybody can read the study. Doesn't make us knowledgeable about how the experiment was performed. I'm way past the point of thinking just because someone has an M.D. after their name that they're a paragon of virtue and a genius of science. I've had doctors who are dumb as a box of rocks and others willing to sell me down the river to make the health insurance company happy. I had a doctor lie to my face and when we got on the phone and verified that I was right, he stalked out of the room like I had insulted God. I had another one botch my operation and refuse to see me afterward, for fear of admitting something I could use in a lawsuit. (All I was looking for was a solution.) They're just people, with the same human weaknesses and foibles as other people.

          • My source is a board certified neonatologist, that trained with the guys who developed surfactant, who was AOA in med school. She gets nominated for Doc of the year every couple of years. She better be a good doc because she isn't much of a cook...

            I'm just trying to tell you that there is a lot more smoke than fire here.

          • Is this the chick from the Little Couple? Oh, no, she is too young to have been involved in the development of surfactant some 50 years ago! Your descriptions of your source are not adding up.to be reliable. Just who is the . Paragon of Neonatal Medicine?

          • I don't get why you two are arguing over this. Forget the particulars and the whatevers and wherefores. Do we think this was a good thing? No? Good, then we agree.

          • I agree with JP here. anyone with half a brain knows that to little oxygen is a bad thing, and that to much oxygen is a bad thing. They didn't need to research this. The only valid portion of this that I saw was the methods used for breathing assistance: CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) vs. InSuRE (INtubation - SURfactant - Extubation).

            Intentionally altering the oxygen levels is something the NAZI's would have done in the name of "science". Something akin to how high can we drop someone on their head before brain damage occurs, or how high before there a killed by the impact. Or the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

  • You are all victims of the lawyers and the MSM. While not a doctor, I have access to the SME of SMEs on this matter, but who was not involved in this study.

    The level of oxygen in the two groups was over lapping. It wasn't a Goldilocks situation off too-hot and too-cold. The question they were looking to answer was in a fairly narrow range of saturation levels that were normally used for these extremely preterm babies.

    The MSM is misreporting what this study actually did and the effect on the babies. Why? How much you want to bet that there are multiple lawsuits and this is a huge jury tainting maneuver.

    Throw in MSM reporters that love the visuals and can't understand the science. It is just like the coverage of the Antarctic ice sheet melting. Big claims, nice visuals and a complete contempt for the actual science.

    I know some of you won't like my answer, but it is the truth. The actual science here is beyond a 30 second sound clip, so the MSM isn't interested. We'll never hear about how this is being mis-reported. Those soundbites never make it.

    If you have ever had a premie or know someone who has, you have to be very leery of these attacks on NICU medicine. If you ever want to improve the outcomes for these 24+ weekers, you had better hope that this doesn't chill out all the research that is being done. The research that changed the outcomes of 32 weekers like JKFs kid from a death sentence to just another feeder/grower in the NICU.

    • You need to read the article. The salient point is near the end, the aspect of the experiment that horrified other medical people. Yes, the amount of oxygen provided was in the normal range, but caregivers were prevented from adjusting oxygen levels according to the babies' needs. Not every premature baby is the same. They are individuals. Some have lungs that work surprisingly well for the lack of development, some have lungs that barely work at all. The gauges were modified to give false readings so caregivers would not know the babies' actual oxygen levels. The babies were stripped of their individuality and lumped into a controlled experiment. For you to have a valid point here, you need to make the argument that caregivers play no role in the survival of premature babies, that adjusting oxygen levels according to the babies' needs serves no useful purpose... and to make that argument I think you are going to have to convince the doctors and nurses who make a living at it. Good luck with that.

      • You've made up your mind.

        I actually talked to a neonatologist that actually read the study that was conducted, not the news report, and what you are alleging- that the babies oxygen levels were not adjusted to their individual care is not correct.

        Did you stay at a Holiday Inn last night?? Or am I gong to believe the person with career of taking care of babies like these. Geez, let me think about that.

        My source is the Larry Vickers of neonatology and you read an online article. Fascinating. Do tell me more.

        You are being played here, and even after being told you are, you don't see it.

        • Fact: many if nor most preterm babies need supplemental oxygen to survive. Fact: the specific duration and amount of supplemental oxygen varies markedly from baby to baby. Fact: it has been long established that the higher the level of oxygen supplementation, and the duration, the higher the risk of blindness. Fact: too little oxygen can cause severe brain damage and/or death. The article indicates that the ongoing adjustment of oxygen levels in response to arterial blood gas results, was "blinded" as part of the study, which meant the caregivers did not actually change the O2 as the thought. So help me out. What was the point to this? And just what was identified as the result of this study?

          • RonNRoll Dad posted a link to the abstract above. According to the abstract, they learned nothing about oxygen levels, so that whole part of the experiment was a bust. They do claim to have discovered a slight difference in positive outcomes based on how the oxygen is delivered.

            "RESULTS: Infants randomized to lower vs higher oxygen saturation targets had a similar risk of death or respiratory morbidity (except for croup and treatment with oxygen or diuretics at home). Infants randomized to CPAP vs intubation/surfactant had fewer episodes of wheezing without a cold (28.9% vs 36.5%; P < .05), respiratory illnesses diagnosed by a doctor (47.7% vs 55.2%; P < .05), and physician or emergency room visits for breathing problems (68.0% vs 72.9%; P < .05) by 18-22 months CA."

          • And again, we have been using surfactant for fore c.f. Dr, and back.in the early 70's they established that positive pressure ventilation at rapid rates could save m a ny presumes with respiratory distress syndrome. Further work established that in some cases this treatment a los benefited adults with severe respiratory distress. So the point to the research was?????

        • According to the article:


          "Normally, medical personnel constantly adjust oxygen as preemies’ conditions change, based on their individual needs. But the SUPPORT study was designed to keep infants in their randomly assigned range, despite a baby’s individual needs. And in a decision that one government source says shocked seasoned researchers when they learned of it, the babies’ oxygen monitors intentionally were altered to provide false readings. The reason: so medical staff wouldn’t be tempted to adjust oxygen out of the babies’ study-assigned range."

          You are saying that's 100% made up. I suppose that's possible. Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to people's dishonesty. But the notion that the key factoid motivating an ethics investigation and years of ethics debate in the medical community is completely fabricated, will need more than your claimed discussion with an unnamed source who "read the study." What you're asking me to believe is that all the people debating the ethics of this experiment were fooled except you, and some unnamed guy you know has the magical ability to read a study and determine that medical gauges were not touched. What is he, telepathic?

  • Simply mind blowing, and these are the same people who are in charge of our Health Care system. Anyone who things these animals have our best interests in mind makes fools look good.

    • Sure but Sarah Palin is a dolt for even saying that there would be death/rationing panels in Obama-democrat care.

      For my money Palin could spot Obama 50 points on an IQ test and win....75 to most propagandists.

    • I got all excited when I saw a comment section. But then I learned you have to be an author of a medical paper on the site to comment. Apparently they don't want us riffraff commenting and telling them what we think of how they spent our tax money.

  • What difference does it make? They are not babies, they are only body masses subject to elective surgery. A women's right to choose remember!!!

    • Of course, it's always about the woman's right to choose, like the women that slaughter their children, it was their right to choose, right? :roll:

  • They will share in a nobel peace prize and obutthole will appoint them to run the obamacare death panels

  • Hey, these Progressive sickos just see it as an opportunity for a "post-birth abortion."

  • And we all know if they can do this to babies they would never hesitate to experiment with adults.

    • Confused and demented elders in homes. List e n when they complain. Irvine' t always just because they are old!

  • Josef Mengele is smiling.

    Funny what big government progressive fascists will do when they have power. There is not a dime's worth of difference between the NAZI party platform of the 1930s and the democrat party platform from 2002 on.

    • Like the government approved of genetic cleansing. Nazi Germany Germany took lessons from US on that one!

      • Well to be more pointed, the NAZIs took their ques from PROGRESSIVES, not the USA in general. Wilson is still now my second worst president. Obama is number ! and also a fascist progressive as Wilson was.