|
 Often we discover denunciations to be less serious when we check on them in loco. This month I had the unpleasant surprise of confirming the veracity of a denunciation that appeared unreal. I flew to Macapá, located on the equator in the Amazon region, went by car to Santana, caught a boat and, one and a half hours later, arrived in São Raimundo do Pirativa and São João do Matapi on the banks of the long, beautiful Matapi River.
I wanted to verify that human guinea pigs had indeed been used there in anti-malarial research. I intended to converse with all the persons involved: the victims; those responsible for the research; the local prosecutor who presented the initial denunciation. I would then divulge the matter nationally by means of the Senate Human Rights Commission, of which I am president. But the reality was worse than the denunciation. In the first place, at least 18 persons were, indeed, used as guinea pigs in the research. By means of a tube they aspirated the "carapanã," as they call the mosquito in the region. Then they placed it in a glass that they covered with perforated lid. After capturing 25 mosquitoes, each participant was bitten until the mosquitoes were sufficiently fed with human blood. They were so "full" that they were immobilized at the bottom of the glass. Next, each person repeated the operation with three more glasses, each one containing 25 additional mosquitoes. The total was 100 mosquitoes per night for nine consecutive nights. Each night, hours of pain, discomfort and health risks. One of the inhabitants submitted to the process said that it was like being tortured for hours. Many of them contracted malaria. According to them, for months there had not been a single case of malaria in the area but it resurged after the project was initiated. Scientific ethics prohibit this type of research. People can be used as human bait to capture mosquitoes but not as guinea pigs to feed them. Doing this in exchange for money is prohibited. The international scientific community defends only the use of volunteers in these experiments because offering payment to the poor condemns them to the perpetual status of research guinea pigs. This is why, sad as it was to see what occurred in São Raimundo do Pirativa, it was equally sad to hear some of those who suffered torture lamenting the suspension of the research by a Ministry of Health resolution. They would rather receive 12 reais (US$ 5.25) in exchange for torture and illness than have the payment suspended. As if the shame of being Brazilian were not bad enough when the poor are victims, out of necessity, of such barbarity, it is even sadder to learn that this was done through the manipulation of information. Those responsible asked the Ministry of Health for authorization to use human bait, but a different text served as orientation for the project. The victims signed a five-page document with passages in English, committing themselves to be the guinea-pig feeders of mosquitoes, vectors of malaria. Many of those who signed did not even know how to read. At the top of the contract, written in English, were the words "approved by the University of Florida." This was an injury to human rights, sovereignty, research ethics, and the dignity of these people. We must not fear research. Brazil needs to give much more support to the work of researchers. But incidents like these cannot ever be permitted to happen again. And returning from Matapi, we asked ourselves how many other incidents of this kind are occurring today in other regions of Brazil. We need to mobilize ourselves to guarantee increasing support for research. But it is also necessary to mobilize ourselves so that incidents like this one will never be repeated. Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage - www.cristovam.com.br - and write to him at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome -
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
))