Early Bill Sweet BNCT at MIT and MGH

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@attbi.com>]

Group, FYI.

Regards, Jim

============



Verdict against MGH voided



Court overturns $8M decision



By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff, 8/29/2002



federal appeals court has overturned a jury verdict ordering Massachusetts

General Hospital and a neurosurgeon to pay $8 million in damages to the

families of two brain tumor patients who died during experimental nuclear

treatments in the 1960s.



 



The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that there was

''insufficient evidence'' presented during the 1999 trial to support the

jury's conclusion that MGH and Dr. William Sweet hastened the deaths of two

terminally ill cancer patients by using them in a government-funded cancer

research project that they knew had no therapeutic value.



In a unanimous decision released Tuesday, Appeals Court Judge Sandra L.

Lynch wrote that specialists who testified against the hospital and the

doctor had inappropriately relied on articles and studies written after the

experiments - which revealed that they destroyed too much normal brain

tissue with tumors.



A report written by Sweet in 1962 about the unsuccessful nuclear therapy

administered to some 60 patients at MGH in the 1950s and '60s had the

benefit of ''hindsight'' and failed to show what he knew at the time of the

trials, the court concluded.



''That medical research at times produces results less than hoped for is to

be expected,'' Lynch wrote. ''This does not logically lead to the conclusion

that the research should not be undertaken.''



A lawyer for MGH and Sweet hailed the ruling as ''complete and absolute

vindication'' but added that it came too late to provide any relief for

Sweet, who died of complications of Parkinson's disease in January 2001. The

former chief of neurological service at MGH was 90 years old.



''He was really a wonderful, dedicated surgeon who clearly helped many

people and saved many lives throughout his career,'' said the lawyer, Joseph

L. Doherty Jr. He added that the experimental treatment program ''was

undertaken completely in good faith in the hope that it would provide a cure

for the most deadly form of brain cancer in humans.''



The appeals court found that the experiments did not hasten the death of

either patient.



Evelyn Heinrich, one of the plaintiffs, said she was outraged that a panel

of judges had tossed out a jury's verdict finding that MGH and Sweet were

negligent and had caused the death of her husband, George Heinrich, and the

other patient, Eileen Sienkewicz. Both died in 1961.



''I don't know what we have a jury system for,'' said Heinrich, noting that

jurors had heard three weeks of testimony and deliberated for five days.

''That was a very substantial verdict and a very conscientious one on the

part of the jurors, and it should stand.''



The lawsuit accused MGH, Sweet, and the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology of using Heinrich and Sienkewicz as ''human guinea pigs without

their consent'' in painful, unproven medical experiments that were of no

therapeutic value to them.



Heinrich, 35, the father of a 3 -year-old daughter, and Sienkewicz, a

40-year-old mother of three, were afflicted with fast-growing brain tumors

when Sweet and MGH decided to administer boron neutron capture therapy,

which was partially funded by a grant from the US Atomic Energy Commission.



They were injected with boron, a chemical that concentrates on brain tumors,

then were treated with a neutron beam at MIT. The treatment destroyed their

tumors but scorched healthy brain tissue.



The families didn't learn details of the experiments until 1995, when the

President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments released

previously secret documents.



Jurors rejected the claim that MGH and Sweet failed to inform Sienkewicz and

Heinrich about the procedure and get their consent to participate. But the

jury members found they were negligent and wrongfully caused the deaths and

ordered them to pay $8 million in damages. The jury rejected all claims

against MIT.



In October 2000, US District Chief Judge William G. Young slashed the jury's

$8 million award to $830,000, ruling that when the deaths occurred in 1961

there was a cap on the amount of damages a party could be forced to pay for

causing a death. 



In setting aside the jury's verdict and Young's decision, Lynch wrote:

''What is at stake is the medical treatment of two patients and the

professional reputations of individuals and institutions based on services

performed over four decades ago.''



Noting that the bar to be surmounted in proving medical malpractice cases is

a high one, Lynch wrote: ''That bar cannot be lowered to compensate for

absence of relevant experience, fading memory, or lack of documentary

evidence.''



Vermont lawyer Anthony Roisman, who represents the families, said lawyers

have yet to decide whether to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court or

seek a re-hearing by the appeals court.



This story ran on page B5 of the Boston Globe on 8/29/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. 



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