Health-care experts and NGOs are expressing great concern about a company’s proposal to use 3,000 Cambodian orphans as medical guinea pigs to test a homeopathic treatment designed to boost immune systems.
Bahamas-based Hansi International Ltd wants to conduct a six-month to two-year trial to see if five droplets of medication coming from Argentina’s rain forests would build up human immune systems.
Hansi officials told a local NGO that Cambodia was selected because the cost of a trial here would be a fraction of that in the West and because they have a humanitarian motivation.
Officials at Hansi, the name Argentinean botanist Juan Hirschmann gave to his homeopathic treatments for cancer, AIDS and hepatitis, claim similar treatments in Argentina and elsewhere have helped boost immune systems weakened by illness.
But health care experts and NGOs say Hansi’s proposal raises concerns that companies believe they can cheaply use Cambodia’s children without facing punishment if something goes wrong. Also, the long term effects and the sustainability of the Hansi treatment is unknown.
“They can’t use human life as an animal for their experiment,” Dy Narong-Rith, vice chairman of the National AIDS Authority, said Tuesday.
Although an Internet site claims “Hansi is a story of people, tens of thousands strong, who believe Hansi is a discovery to end disease on earth,” it also admits that controlled studies to examine the treatment have not been conducted.
“The question is, ‘What precedent does this set? What does this open the door to?’” said Nigel Goddard, executive director of Southeast Asian Outreach, a local NGO which was contacted by Hansi because of its work with orphanages.
Henk Bekedam, team leader for the World Health Organization’s health sector reform project, said he could not comment on the technical aspects of the treatment, but said it does raise ethical questions.
“It doesn’t sound nice from an ethical point of view,” Bekedam said. “It doesn’t feel good.”
Hansi has not yet contacted the Ministry of Health to obtain permission for the trial, said Bun Heng, chief of cabinet for the ministry, who also indicated Hansi would probably not receive approval for its project. He and other health officials said they had never heard of Hansi.
A meeting with Hansi’s chairman and concerned NGOs was to take place Tuesday, but Hansi officials said they had to go to Bangkok, so the gathering was postponed.
Hansi came to Cambodia through an obscure, local NGO called Concern International Inc, which no longer operates in Cambodia, according to a phone message from Concern’s President James Franks left on the answering machine of Southeast Asian Outreach on Tuesday. (Concern International isn’t related to Concern Worldwide, an Irish NGO that has operated in Cambodia since 1990).
Goddard said he first met Hansi officials late last year, when they indicated they were interested in humanitarian aid and providing medical assistance to orphans in Cambodia.
However, heads of orphanages contacted by Hansi officials became angry and worried when they learned the company was planning to conduct trial treatments on orphans.
Hansi also was not aware of the government’s Ethical Guidelines for Health Research involving Subjects, Goddard said, which has not yet been approved, but are the rules enforced by the Ministry of Health.
The guidelines state that “Before undertaking research involving children, the investor must ensure that children will not be involved in research that might equally well be carried out with adults.”
“Many NGOs are concerned and hope that this company respects the ethical guidelines,” said Stephane Rousseau, executive director of Medicam, an umbrella organization for health care NGOs.
Goddard said he gave the guidelines to Hansi officials when he met them again in late January to clarify what their interests were in Cambodia.
Hansi officials told him Cambodia was selected because the cost of a trial here would be cheaper than in the West.
Orphanages have been selected, they told him, because this gives a higher level of confidence of the children staying and following the regime, and less likelihood of alcohol or smoking interfering with results.
They also told him there would be no payments to orphanages. If the orphans have illnesses, Hansi would treat them, possibly using more aggressive treatments. A Hansi doctor would be constantly available and based at every orphanage where the trial was conducted.
The company said the treatment could potentially be manufactured within facilities already within Cambodia at a very low cost of $12 or less for a 30-day treatment.
“If they can do half of what they say they can, it would be great,” Goddard said. “But coming in with that large of a trial using orphans of all groups, it’s got to raise questions.”
