The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "human experiments" ...
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Disposable Heroes
The original story focused on Iraqi war veteran James Elliott, who suffered a psychotic breakdown and was stun gunned by police while taking the drug Chantix in a smoking cessation study by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The series examined the use of military veterans as guinea pigs in drug experiments conducted by the federal government and exposed numerous ethical lapses, including a system-wide failure to notify participants when the Food and Drug Administration issues new drug warnings.
Tags: Department of Veterans Affairs; veteran; drug trials; Food and Drug Administration; Soldiers for the Truth; human research studies; Pfizer; PTSD; smoking
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Trouble on the Farm: From Research to Waste
This investigation of animal neglect at the University of Nevada, Reno revealed that: administrators set up a camera in a smoke detector outside a faculty whistleblower's lab; students alleged late-night intruders tampered with e-coli experiments to discredit the professor; a network of unregulated "homeland security" cameras kept the campus under surveillance; "valueless" sheep injected with human stem cells were sent to a university ranch as part of a weed eradication project and were swiftly killed by predators. And, although the University denied all the animal abuse allegations, the USDA cited it for 46 violations in May and another 10 in October, which included many of the same neglects documented in the story.
Tags: University of Nevada - Reno; animal abuse; animal neglect; United States Department of Agriculture; USDA; surveillance; human stem cells; e-coli
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Troubled Children: Trapped by Greed
This three-part series explores the group home system in North and South Carolina. The investigation found that in many cases profit was more important than treatment, but that tens of milloins of dollars were wasted since 2001 due to staffing level requirements. Another story told of the group home boom that happened when entreprenuers found they could start a group home with little experience and significant profit. Finally, the series looked ahead at what was in store for the future of group homes to find that a return to family care and group home reforms were likely.
Tags: mental health; neglect; Department of Health and Human Services
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An inside look at how a university tries to protect human subjects. Federal scrutiny has led Duke to ease the huge workloads burdening its review boards.
This article talks about how universities' Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are overworked, and often times unable to properly evaluate and supervise experiments involving human test subjects. The Chronicle observed and document how Duke university evaluates it's IRB experiment proposals.
Tags: IRB; institutional review board; education; colleges; universities; human test subjects; Duke; professors; school; higher education
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Trials and Errors
A Newsweek investigation tries to find out if medical experimentation on human volunteers poses an risk. Many experts agree that trials with human subjects are crucial to the creation and success of new drugs and surgical procedures, but Newsweek finds that in may cases experiments have "violated laws meant to protect people who volunteer to test experimental drugs and surgeries." The investigation also found that in some cases doctors may have placed patients on the wrong type of medication or in the wrong study, and may even have hastily pressured patients into their experiments. Some of the biggest problems comes from the oversight of these studies, with hospitals and medical agencies being totally unaware of what certain doctors might be doing. Newsweek discovers cases where subjects have gone blind and even died as a result of experiments.
Tags: Health; medicine; experiments; studies.
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Ethics & Orphans: the Monster Study
In 1939, speech pathologist Wendell Johnson and a graduate student conducted an experiment on a group of orphans near the University of Iowa. Their theory: "Stuttering begins in the ear of the listener, not in the mouth of the child." To test the hypothesis, the researchers conducted a psychological experiment on children starved for attention. Those who stuttered improved with positive speech therapy, but the children who had no trouble speaking were given negative therapy and became chronic stutterers for life. The research was never published and was known at the University as "The Monster Study" for the harm it did to the parentless children.
Tags: stutter; ethics; morality; science; institutional review; orphans; unethical study; human experiments; pathology; Iowa State Board of Control; children; control groups
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Fair Game?
"It's legal in more than 20 states to hunt native and exotic game on commercial hunting ranches. It's a growing and lucrative business which promises trophies for hunters who don't' have a lot of time. The hunts are guaranteed with no-kill, no-pay policies and a complete shopping list of game to choose. In some cases, animals that have been raised and fed by humans. Dateline decided to visit some commercial hunting operations to experience first-hand what they are like. Would there be a fair chase? Would the animals fear humans? Would they have any chance for escape, or would they be easy targets."
Tags: commerical hunting; animal rights; cruelty; ranches; undercover; wildlife; conservation; animal rights; trophy; TAPE
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The Body Hunters
"A Washington Post investigation into corporate drug experiments in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America reveals a booming, poorly regulated testing system that is dominated by private interests and that far too often betrays its promises to patients and consumers."
Tags: FOI; pharmaceutical companies; medical research; FDA (Food and Drug Administration); WHO epidemic data; developing nations' medical trials; ethics; NIH grant files; Office of Human Research Portections; new drug development; HIV tests; Trovan; Doctors Without Borders; private sector experiments; meningitis; database mapping project
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Don't Talk to the Humans: The Crackdown on Social Science Research
Lingua Franca investigates a problem spreading across universities across the country: "the unwarranted and intrusive policing of social science research by human-subject committees." Christopher Shea outlines the problems social scientists have getting their research proposals passed by university review boards. Historians, anthropologists, even journalists are required to present their proposals to these review boards. These review boards were originally set up to prevent researchers from performing disturbing experiments like Stanley Milgram's famous "fatal shock" experiment in the mid-1970s. However, Shea points out, the concerns of the review boards often do not make sense in the context of historical or media research.
Tags: research; social sciences; institutional review boards; IRBs; human-subject
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Teen Dies Undergoing Experimental Gene Therapy
This series of stories investigates medical research and explains how many participants in controversial gene therapy experiments have died. This file includes copies of documents from the Department of Health and Human Services, the University of Pennsylvania Health System and others that were used for research.