Re: SAVE This Evidence

Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 04:13:03 -0500

At 01:38 AM 1/28/99 -0500, Ron Kean wrote:

>But here is an excerpt from the new text that relpaced what was repealed:
>
>
>
>(c) Informed consent required
>
> The Secretary of Defense may conduct a test or experiment described in
>subsection (b) of this section only if informed consent to the testing
>was
>obtained from each human subject in advance of the testing on that
>subject.

IAN: There's no question that that provision addresses exactly what 1520 obviously lacked, and I think your raising it also address the idea I was replying to that now only the 30-day-notification period is lifted.

If you read 1520(a), subsection (c) is also well-embedded into it, and there is no way for the Secretary of Defence to get around it (that I can find so far). But, as for the President and the rest of the Govt, 1520(a) imposses no prohibitions.

I'd rather see 1520(a) start for saying that "No agency or member of the U.S. Government, or contracting for same or any entity may..." Instead, only one official is restrained.

I think Hal's point was even deeper than I'd grasped. I think he was saying that 1520 was not a de facto "legalization," it wasn't saying "this is now declared legal." It was more like stepping in the planning room of an on-going project, such that the only reason the law was written was to tell the DoD that they have to give a 30-day warning FROM NOW ON.

In short, that testing is allowable wasn't the point of 1520, the 30-day notice was. Ergo, the mass testing is considered legal. That seems to me to be a possible reading.



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