Forum:Topic: When life situations preclude a family’s ability to care for their children, the children may be placed into the state foster care system. Please review this on foster care children b

 Forum:

Topic: When life situations preclude a family’s ability to care for their children, the children may be placed into the state foster care system. Please review this on foster care children being used in the testing and research of AIDS drugs. The article is located at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7736157/ns/health-aids/t/government-tested-aids-drugs-foster-kids/#.W5_-DWeWyHs

Do you think that the children should have been included in the study? Were their rights violated or protected? Was the family was well informed about the process and possible side affects? Share other reactions to the information provided in the article.

Reply#1:

 DB Forum 2COLLAPSE

After reading this article, it is very sad and devastating to see these children going through this testing process with no advocates, nothing and no one to help to them through it.  There is no one there to help them get through these treatments and monitor them as closely as they should have been. The side effects that they were experiencing with this trial were not easy ones. Their infection-fighting cells were dropping, vomiting and rashes were not being properly monitored. The only thing I do agree with is the children's access to better drugs that they otherwise would not have if they wouldn't have participated in the trials. As expert "said they lack the resources to ensure the safety of foster children." (Solomon, 2005) If  they lacked the resources, they should not have been doing these trials that weren't being properly monitored. They were giving five and ten year olds authorization to consent as adults because they could make them aware of the side effects. When I think my own children receiving such authority on something so important just makes me really sad for these kids. The fact that they have changed policies because of this issue, is progress. Something needed to be done. 

Reply #2:

 Orielle Powell Drug TestingCOLLAPSE

Aids drug testing was done on foster children that were mostly poor or minority. The government was required to provide care to the children with the effort of slowing down the death rate. One of the things that the government was instructed to do was assign advocates to act in the best interest of the child. There were states that participated in the research, but many did not. Some states said they will never allow children in foster care to participate in the experiment, while other states allowed their foster kids to participate since the drug did not for a risk benefit towards the child. However, according to some administrators, there was uncertainty to how the drug will affect children since the medication was toxic for adults, (Solomon, 2015). The research drug left the children vulnerable to serious side effects to include rashes, vomiting and infection fighting blood cells, (Solomon, 2005). Some of the children even died. However, according to Mark Kilne, the treatment gave the children access to drugs that they would be able to afford in any other circumstance, (Solomon 2005).

I do not think that children should have been included in this study. I believe the experiment should have been restricted to consenting adults only. The drug had an adverse effect on adults, what greater damage could it have caused children? This drug was given to foster children that were mostly poor or minority. Why was this group of people used for the experiment? Was the minority life less valuable than anyone else'? Neither the children nor their family well informed of the possible effects of the drug. The children acted as guinea pigs in the medical experiment. Medical experiment is a form of poverty from a functionalist view, (Henslin, 2018). However, there seems to be a positive consequence of poverty. The consequence of the children being used in the experiment could be that the drug being tested was an avenue to help stop the AIDS death rate for all of society? However, the researcher did say that this drug gave the group the opportunity to benefit from a drug that they wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford. This experiment seems to be one that serve no benefit for all of society, but the privileged, those in power, and those that are wealthy.