WASHINGTON — Southern Illinois University’s medical school has halted all herpes research, one of its most high-profile projects, amid growing controversy over a researcher’s unauthorized methods offshore and in the U.S.
This update doesn’t add much new to this shocking story (and we have included earlier reporting in the Resource Library), but this report offers an opportunity to reflect on the importance of institutions taking proportionate, firm but fair action when confronted with dangerous lone-wolf misdeeds.
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Halford, who died in June, had injected Americans with his experimental herpes vaccine in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2016 and in Illinois hotel rooms in 2013 without routine safety oversight from the Food and Drug Administration or an institutional review board, according to ongoing reporting by KHN. Some of the participants say they are experiencing side effects.
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The panel, known as the Misconduct in Science Committee, told SIU’s medical school dean that the inquiry should not only investigate the extent of Halford’s alleged wrongdoing, but also scrutinize “members of his research team,” according to the Dec. 5 memo obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
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