Aggregated News
In early June, an Indian medical researcher traveled to Chicago to report seemingly astounding results from a decadelong study of cervical-cancer screening in the slums of Mumbai.
Using a simple, inexpensive vinegar test, researchers had cut the rate of death from cervical cancer by 31 percent, Dr. Surendra Shastri told more than 5,000 doctors at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.
“He has become one of my heroes,” Dr. Sandra Swain, ASCO’s president, told the gathering, hailing Shastri for results he said potentially could save 22,000 lives a year in India and 72,000 lives a year around the world.
But in widely reported videos and press releases trumpeting the results, neither the society nor Shastri delved into ethical and other questions that had been raised behind the scenes before the conference, in part as a result of earlier reporting by The Arizona Republic.
These included concerns about the findings, their broader relevance, and how they were achieved — and, in particular, why researchers put half of the women in their study, more than 76,000 — in a “control”...
Using a simple, inexpensive vinegar test, researchers had cut the rate of death from cervical cancer by 31 percent, Dr. Surendra Shastri told more than 5,000 doctors at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.
“He has become one of my heroes,” Dr. Sandra Swain, ASCO’s president, told the gathering, hailing Shastri for results he said potentially could save 22,000 lives a year in India and 72,000 lives a year around the world.
But in widely reported videos and press releases trumpeting the results, neither the society nor Shastri delved into ethical and other questions that had been raised behind the scenes before the conference, in part as a result of earlier reporting by The Arizona Republic.
These included concerns about the findings, their broader relevance, and how they were achieved — and, in particular, why researchers put half of the women in their study, more than 76,000 — in a “control”...