![]() ![]() Its executives told The Times the institute follows all federal laws governing clinical trials, but they declined to answer a list of questions.Īccording to its website, Lundquist solicits companies, the government and foundations for research grants. Lundquist, a private nonprofit, is not subject to public records laws. Other government safety-net hospitals allow clinical trials, but unlike Harbor, most have internal committees to monitor the research and make sure patient volunteers aren’t misled or taken advantage of. Public Health Service called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” One egregious example: a trial that began in 1932 by the U.S. ![]() It has long been controversial for doctors to recruit the poor and other vulnerable people into experiments because of repeated historical scandals where they were misled. The county told The Times it believes the research operation at the hospital was “essential to the advancement of medicine” and noted the recent nationwide push to put more minorities into clinical trials when 75% of participants are now white. The arrangement is unusual for a government hospital, or any hospital with a large research operation, because it allowed an outside private group to oversee and manage the studies performed on its patients, who at Harbor are mostly low-income, including many not fluent in English. The county Board of Supervisors granted the private research group access to Harbor’s “facilities, staffing, patients and medical records,” according to the agreement. ![]() Like dozens of other doctors at Harbor, White was both a physician at the eight-story public hospital in Torrance and a scientist at the private research facility, now known as the Lundquist Institute, that sits next door on county land. He was excited to join the hospital’s team of vascular surgeons, where White would be his supervisor. The county says it is appealing that decision and the jury’s verdict.Īfter graduating from Harvard Medical School and residency work at Stanford and the Cleveland Clinic, Ryan arrived at Harbor in October 2013. In December, a judge said the county must pay $3.2 million to cover fees of Ryan’s lawyers. Ryan has filed an appeal, saying a judge’s decision before the trial had worked to wrongly limit how much the jury could award him. Medtronic said in a statement that Ryan’s claims do “not reflect Medtronic practices then or now.” The company said it had “rigorous processes” to ensure its interactions with physicians “are consistent with government law and regulations.” ![]() They say Higgins’ care was “medically sound and within the standard of care” and that White “acted appropriately.” They added that they “supported his research relationship with Medtronic.” “This was done purely to line doctors’ pockets.”Ī jury awarded Ryan $2.1 million in March 2022 for emotional distress damages, finding that his acts to stop his employer from filing a false insurance claim were a substantial motivating reason for the county to take adverse actions against him.Ĭounty officials disagree with Ryan’s account, including his allegation of retaliation. “These are the most vulnerable people in L.A. Ryan said in the suit that county officials and Harbor doctors retaliated against him when he tried to get them to investigate Higgins’ care and the money the surgeons had been receiving for years from Medtronic. Patients are asked to sign waivers saying they agree to the experiments’ risks. County doctors who have signed industry research agreements receive outside payments for the experimental work. The research operation has aided drug companies and device makers that use the studies to test their products and promote them. The experimental surgery on Higgins, who is Black, was part of an extensive research operation that doctors created at Harbor, whose patients are mostly poor and people of color. And he contended that the surgeons went through patient charts to find candidates for the expensive medical devices - whether they needed them or not. In his lawsuit, he said no doctors were trained at many of the surgeries claimed to be Medtronic courses. “This was done purely to line doctors’ pockets.” ![]()
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