Sex slaves for science?

[aminorthreat55]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060107.wxcentre07/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/

That's insane. Hopefully they can use it to their advantage despite the fact that they still haven't.

[Hilikus]

wow she must be so loose

[noodledancer]

that was a very interesting read. i do wonder how researchers secured informed consent from the women when they don't really understand what the blood samples are for.

wow she must be so loose
you are a jackass.

[Hilikus]

you are a jackass.

uh, it was a joke


at least i dont listen to shitty music

[swirlofhues]

My teacher was talking about this a few weeks ago, I couldn't really fathom someone being immune to the virus. But, really, it's amazing and hopefully more funding will go to the research.

[Kelley Nicole]

at least i dont listen to shitty music
haha, OOOOO, TAKE THAT!

and come on now, you like boys night out, so you shouldn't be throwing that 'insult' at anyone.

[sleepygrlgreen]

wow, hopefully something really good will come of this.

[noodledancer]

uh, it was a joke


at least i dont listen to shitty music
uh, it wasn't funny. you must be a jackass if you thought it would be.

& i don't need to justify my musical preferences to a 16 year old.

haha, OOOOO, TAKE THAT!

and come on now, you like boys night out, so you shouldn't be throwing that 'insult' at anyone.
haha... seriously.

[richter915]

I usually have faith in science...but science has gone a bit far with this one.

[sleepygrlgreen]

I usually have faith in science...but science has gone a bit far with this one.wait...was this person originally a person who sold herself for sex or has she been doing this for science for all these years?

[richter915]

wait...was this person originally a person who sold herself for sex or has she been doing this for science for all these years?
did you read the article? it says she's a prostitute the whole time. That's where the problem lies...the scientists want her to stay a whore for their research.

[noodledancer]

wait...was this person originally a person who sold herself for sex or has she been doing this for science for all these years?
she was a prostitute before hand. however, it's kinda messed up for the researchers to study these women because they're not making any effort to get them out of prostitution. there's also no added benefit to participation in the study because the general population in their home country also has access to medical care & antiretroviral drugs. this wouldn't fly if the subjects were from a western country. it's basically exploiting the third world for the "good" of scientific advancement.

[MLLMillenium]

she was a prostitute before hand. however, it's kinda messed up for the researchers to study these women because they're not making any effort to get them out of prostitution. there's also no added benefit to participation in the study because the general population in their home country also has access to medical care & antiretroviral drugs. this wouldn't fly if the subjects were from a western country. it's basically exploiting the third world for the "good" of scientific advancement.

So?

[richter915]

So?
you would love it if slavery came back, wouldn't ya?

[noodledancer]

So?

i'm talking about: exploit = to make use of selfishly or unethically
not: exploit = to employ to the greatest possible advantage

do you think it's right for researchers to do things that would be unethical to do in their home countries in foreign countries? it's basically saying some (third-world) human lives are worth less than others (westernized). furthermore, people in the third world are less likely to be able to pay for or get access to whatever new treatment or vaccine is developed, even though they are in the areas hit hardest by hiv. the research works in the interest of the industrialized nations that fund it rather than the people they study & supposedly aim to help.

[MLLMillenium]

i'm talking about: exploit = to make use of selfishly or unethically
not: exploit = to employ to the greatest possible advantage

do you think it's right for researchers to do things that would be unethical to do in their home countries in foreign countries? it's basically saying some (third-world) human lives are worth less than others (westernized). furthermore, people in the third world are less likely to be able to pay for or get access to whatever new treatment or vaccine is developed, even though they are in the areas hit hardest by hiv. the research works in the interest of the industrialized nations that fund it rather than the people they study & supposedly aim to help.

Sure why not. I figure, we could just leave them how we are, or turn their problems into our solution.

[sleepygrlgreen]

she was a prostitute before hand. however, it's kinda messed up for the researchers to study these women because they're not making any effort to get them out of prostitution. there's also no added benefit to participation in the study because the general population in their home country also has access to medical care & antiretroviral drugs. this wouldn't fly if the subjects were from a western country. it's basically exploiting the third world for the "good" of scientific advancement.gotcha.

[richter915]

Sure why not. I figure, we could just leave them how we are, or turn their problems into our solution.
haha now you're just trying to be offensive but will play it off as serious.

hey there's a skinhead meeting tomorrow night, bake some cupcakes.

[preppyak]

at least i dont listen to shitty music
That is a clever comeback for a political forum, because musical preference has any bearing here.

Sure why not. I figure, we could just leave them how we are, or turn their problems into our solution.
The thing the article doesn't mention is that those women have access to medical facilities IN THEIR VILLAGE, something that I bet few others do.

The article says:
..all the Majengo women receive free basic health care and counselling. Since the start of last year, those with fully developed AIDS also receive free antiretroviral medication, which can keep an infected person alive and healthy for decades. But this is no perk. The drugs are supplied by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and are now free to all Kenyans.
But what is the actual usage rate of that for most Kenyans. I bet the medicine is only available in limited spots, and I'm willing to take a chance that at least 10% of the population doesn't even know they can take advantage of that. I'm willing to guess that these women have life spans of 5 or so more years than before the facility was there.

Hers was the first medical team anywhere, she says, to try to organize prostitutes directly. "And we got them to 80-per-cent condom use after the first year.
Also, another thing that will at least lessen the spread of diseases amongst them, which alone can lengthen their lives.

The article makes an effort to rationalize her thoughts based on our conventional values of prostitution=wrong, not based on the fact that these women have this job irregardless, and in return for their blood samples they have medical care readily available.

I don't know if that makes it right, but it makes it far less than the article tries to make it out to be

[noodledancer]

Sure why not. I figure, we could just leave them how we are, or turn their problems into our solution.
omg... i'm speechless.

[richter915]

preppyak...I think you're missing what she really wants. She wants to get out of prostitution completely. Yes they have provided those things to her...but have they stopped some 50,000 men from possibly contracting AIDS from her? no...they haven't helped...and that's what she's asking for and it's completely just...but she feels that being involved in this program is making her stay a prostitute.

[preppyak]

preppyak...I think you're missing what she really wants. She wants to get out of prostitution completely. Yes they have provided those things to her...but have they stopped some 50,000 men from possibly contracting AIDS from her? no...they haven't helped...and that's what she's asking for and it's completely just...but she feels that being involved in this program is making her stay a prostitute.

But she admitted herself that she has no feasible way out of prostitution, since she is not educated to really make the money to get outside of prostitution. Wasn't the line something like "Why work a fruit stand for 400 when you can sell sex for 1000".

I'm willing to guess that she can leave the village at any time, I don't remember reading that she was bound to be a prostitute by some contract. The reality is that she doesn't have the means, and it is NOT the researchers responsibility to find her a job.

[richter915]

Yes she did say she lacks the education but she wants out and the problem is that she (and many others) feel that although there is no contract, the research keeps her bound to prostitution. That line of thinking was mentioned but not by her, it was one of the researchers who essentially said she was their guinea pig who said that.

It might not be their responsibility to find her work, but they also have no right to suggest she stay a prostitute.

[noodledancer]

As well, the researchers hold annual meetings where they try to gather the women and explain what they are working on. But a quick survey of the women in the clinic's waiting room on a bustling morning yields not one who says she understands what is being done with the blood she donates.

these women don't understand what they signed up for, which is a big no-no in research ethics. they're clearly being exploited.

And so, while she is grateful for the prompt, free service at the clinic, she feels that she has been on the losing end of this partnership with the Manitobans.

"I feel they take advantage of me, because I've made such a big name all over the world [for the project], but I'm still in this business. I need something to lift me out of Majengo."

Her frustration is echoed by the Kenyan nurses and counsellors at the little clinic. "These women, 20 years later, they're still in these small rooms," one irate staffer says, adding that she and her colleagues suspect the researchers privately want the women to keep working: "With no sex workers, what would happen to their research?"

According to Prof. Ngugi, who has worked intimately with the women for 20 years, "this has given the world such a huge body of knowledge, but what has the world done to help them change? . . . Quite clearly there is an imbalance."

research on human subjects is generally supposed to confer some benefit to them, & the way it is currently being conducted these women aren't really getting anything. antiretroviral drugs are now available to everyone in the country who has aids, & it surely doesn't benefit someone who is hiv resistant. i also have a sneaking suspicion that these women don't know that they could get the same drugs without being in the study. they might get more regular medical care, but it's really just in the interest of the research (testing for hiv, conversion to aids, & aspects of immune function), not because the researchers care about their health, if they did, they'd probably encourage/help them to get out of prostitution. research participants have the right to stop whenever they choose, but impoverished women whose only means of income is selling themselves for 80 cents probably don't feel like they have much control of their fate.

[MLLMillenium]

haha now you're just trying to be offensive but will play it off as serious.

hey there's a skinhead meeting tomorrow night, bake some cupcakes.

LOL! Pretty much yeah. I honestly don't care to tell you the truth. I could care less what they do with themselves what dieases and such. how they are being used for research, honestly. I just don't care. Not to say I think it's right, I just don't seem to have any compasion for people I dont know. It doesnt affect me, I won't have trouble sleeping knowing people who could be helped have to live in slums and sell themselves everyday, and that they are being used for research instead.

[noodledancer]

well, i guess i can respect your honesty...

[fromwithin]

Sure why not. I figure, we could just leave them how we are, or turn their problems into our solution.

it's not like they're busy anyway.

"click-click click clickclickclick CLICK click clickclick"

translation:

"i live to be 30, aids kill my body. i figure, what the hell, let science play with me. its not like me have anything better to do."

[fromwithin]

haha now you're just trying to be offensive but will play it off as serious.

hey there's a skinhead meeting tomorrow night, bake some cupcakes.

I bet you all wouldn't be saying this stuff if someone in your family had AIDS and they found a cure by guinea pigging a few third world people. would you say "NO I won't take this vile medicine!" I highly doubt it. survival of the fittest.

[richter915]

I bet you all wouldn't be saying this stuff if someone in your family had AIDS and they found a cure by guinea pigging a few third world people. would you say "NO I won't take this vile medicine!" I highly doubt it. survival of the fittest.
did they find the medicine yet? they said it's at least ten years away. If they educated the woman and still had her absolute consent...which is required in research ethics...I wouldn't care at all.

would you be saying something else if they used somebody from the US or another western nation in all of this?

[fromwithin]

did they find the medicine yet? they said it's at least ten years away. If they educated the woman and still had her absolute consent...which is required in research ethics...I wouldn't care at all.

would you be saying something else if they used somebody from the US or another western nation in all of this?

it depends, we don't have a huge outbreak of AIDS here, that's why they won't do it over here. our jails are full enough though, we could guinea pig a few thousand crooks.

[richter915]

it depends, we don't have a huge outbreak of AIDS here, that's why they won't do it over here. our jails are full enough though, we could guinea pig a few thousand crooks.
most people who are in prison are not of Western origin.

You're saying AIDS isn't a problem here, but then you're saying we should use blacks as guinea pigs...if it's not a problem, why should we do that? We're not doing it for their sake (as in, if we do find a vaccine using her, her native Kenya won't see the vaccine for about a decade after the Western world does).

[MLLMillenium]

did they find the medicine yet? they said it's at least ten years away. If they educated the woman and still had her absolute consent...which is required in research ethics...I wouldn't care at all.

would you be saying something else if they used somebody from the US or another western nation in all of this?

Yeah I would, cuz I don't care. So long as it's not me. I'm a selfish prick, and could care less about anyone else. Fuck em.

[richter915]

Yeah I would, cuz I don't care. So long as it's not me. I'm a selfish prick, and could care less about anyone else. Fuck em.
hmm...see me saying "that makes it better" makes me sound horrible and that wouldn't be true. Just, the fact that humans are being exploited into this is just wrong in my mind. That's fine if you're selfish and all (hopefully it's just a phase though, I remember I used to be that way once)...but to devalue someone's life for one's own benefit in my mind is horrible and inhumane.

[richter915]

you know what I find funny...if this were somehow done to an animal, all the PETA people would go insane...yet there's like no complaints from organized human rights organizations on this. Do we put Africans below dogs???

[MLLMillenium]

you know what I find funny...if this were somehow done to an animal, all the PETA people would go insane...yet there's like no complaints from organized human rights organizations on this. Do we put Africans below dogs???

Apparently, oh and how you said you think its in humane. Yeah of course I didin't say it was right. Though I don't care. The way I see it, If I'm not the ones doing it or it's happening to then It's not my concern. now if I was asked to contribute money to the study or help or something i would of course decline. Would I be inhumane to them, no. So therefor, it's not my concern.

[richter915]

Apparently, oh and how you said you think its in humane. Yeah of course I didin't say it was right. Though I don't care. The way I see it, If I'm not the ones doing it or it's happening to then It's not my concern. now if I was asked to contribute money to the study or help or something i would of course decline. Would I be inhumane to them, no. So therefor, it's not my concern.
an interesting line of thought you had...

maybe I should start a thread "the neuroscience of MLLMillenium"...study how you think. It's definitely a bit different from the usual teenage apathy considering you've put thought into it and all.

[MLLMillenium]

an interesting line of thought you had...

maybe I should start a thread "the neuroscience of MLLMillenium"...study how you think. It's definitely a bit different from the usual teenage apathy considering you've put thought into it and all.
Oh well of course. Maybe you can help me understand why extremist librals have to speak their minds out of their asses. Like my sociology teacher.

[DroppedUrPocket]

Comic Sans is fucking annoying.

[MLLMillenium]

Comic Sans is fucking annoying.

hahahaha agreed.

[richter915]

Oh well of course. Maybe you can help me understand why extremist librals have to speak their minds out of their asses. Like my sociology teacher.
she's probably a lesbian. I would consider myself a liberal but honestly, those kind (the weird hippie kind) make me embarrassed to admit it. I have my opinions, they are to the far left, I do like to voice them but not in such a retarded manner. 95% of the liberals you see out there are the "Fuck Bush" type...I have a friend who's a hardcore conservative, he says that I've completely changed his views on how some liberals are and hell...I support socialism.

in the same sense I can't stand the blog Right wingers...it's like, some liberal will say something to them in person, they'll mutter something back...then go bitch about it on their blogs thinking people really care. Man up, have an eye to eye discussion with actual people, it'll make more of an impact.

I just hate politics though...I hate getting involved in it...it usually ruins my day...I stick to science, it keeps me happy.

[richter915]

Comic Sans is fucking annoying.
meh, you learn to live with it.

[MLLMillenium]

she's probably a lesbian. I would consider myself a liberal but honestly, those kind (the weird hippie kind) make me embarrassed to admit it. I have my opinions, they are to the far left, I do like to voice them but not in such a retarded manner. 95% of the liberals you see out there are the "Fuck Bush" type...I have a friend who's a hardcore conservative, he says that I've completely changed his views on how some liberals are and hell...I support socialism.

in the same sense I can't stand the blog Right wingers...it's like, some liberal will say something to them in person, they'll mutter something back...then go bitch about it on their blogs thinking people really care. Man up, have an eye to eye discussion with actual people, it'll make more of an impact.

I just hate politics though...I hate getting involved in it...it usually ruins my day...I stick to science, it keeps me happy.

haha I hate the conservatives too. But I mean, she mentioned Michael Moore and she was like I hate bush a good 5+ times in one class period. When she brought up Moore, I was like "hereeeeee we go"

[noodledancer]

did they find the medicine yet? they said it's at least ten years away. If they educated the woman and still had her absolute consent...which is required in research ethics...I wouldn't care at all.

would you be saying something else if they used somebody from the US or another western nation in all of this?
it's nice to see someone else has some knowledge about research ethics. i really don't think it's right for the areas with the people used to widen the body of knowledge are the last to benefit.

[noodledancer]

Comic Sans is fucking annoying.
my high school teachers never complained. i guess we can agree to disagree...

[richter915]

haha I hate the conservatives too. But I mean, she mentioned Michael Moore and she was like I hate bush a good 5+ times in one class period. When she brought up Moore, I was like "hereeeeee we go"
I usually don't care much for michael moore. Some people think he goes too far and stuff but I don't see it. Usually he does things in a well mannered way...I never see him shouting or raising his voice...I dunno why people give him shit to tell you the truth. The thing is, I don't think he does any wrong...he says it like it actually is. The same can be said for Jon Stewart I think...he knows his stuff...and you know what, he pokes fun at the left all the time, people just see him as overly biased and stuff.

you know what's funny...campus liberals/democrats...these guys are soooo intent on rallying and shit...that they completely forget to do things like...vote. it amazes me sometimes how thickheaded these people can be.

[richter915]

my high school teachers never complained. i guess we can agree to disagree...
I was never a fan of fancy fonts but my teachers loved it...I'd get bonus points just for doing it in a different font...it's amazing how dumb they are.