Four senior doctors have been arrested in Israel for experimenting illegally upon thousands of elderly patients without their consent over several years. According to Haaretz, they have been accused of "wrongful death through negligence, abuse of helpless victims, aggravated assault, fraud, violation of a statutory obligation and interference in an investigation." At least one patient died as a direct result of an experiment and another 12 died during or shortly after another one. At least four doctors at two hospitals became renowned geriatric experts after publishing articles based on the experiments.

The Health Ministry has released a report on the scandal which found that some of these experiments had no medical or scientific benefit. Some were conducted over the protests of other doctors. The report also blasted ethics committees at two hospitals, Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot and the Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera, for approving inappropriate experiments, and the hospitals’ administration for failing to act on complaints.

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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