(HealthDay) -- The travails continue for medical researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Less than a month after the federal government shut down a number of the prestigious institution's research projects on humans, the Maryland Court of Appeals has given the go-ahead to a lawsuit against researchers who allegedly exposed children to lead paint, according to this wire service report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Judge Dale R. Cathellon rebuked the Institutional Review Board at Johns Hopkins University, which oversaw the study conducted by the Kennedy Krieger Institute, saying the institution was more interested in protecting the researchers than the children who were subjected to lead paint in the study. The National Housing Institute explains the dangers of lead paint.
The study, financed by the Environmental Protection Agency, was aimed at finding cheaper alternatives to removing the lead paint often found in old homes. Landlords were paid to recruit families with healthy children, the story says. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two children who became ill, says the families never were told they were at risk for lead poisoning.
Kennedy Krieger Institute spokesman Dr. Gary Goldstein said the children who were studied lived in old row houses and therefore were at high risk for lead poisoning. But he denies that the Institute had anything to do with their becoming sick.
Last month, the federal government temporarily shut almost all of Johns Hopkins' research on human subjects after a healthy lab worker in an asthma study died. Regulators found that the researchers had skipped safety precautions recommended by Johns Hopkins. The research projects have resumed.
This story carried by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer discusses a study that suggests researchers have severely underestimated the number of kids exposed to lead paint.
