Philip Zimbardo: Why ordinary people do evil ... or do good youtube

Stanford Prison Experiment video

Prison Experiment
A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford UniversityWelcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment, including parallels with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.

How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of human nature.

--Philip G. Zimbardo

Donor 45
Last week, news broke that antibodies discovered in a man known only as Donor 45 could, potentially, be used to create a vaccine to protect against HIV/AIDS.

Who is Donor 45? He's a 65-year-old gay, African-American man who has been living with HIV (but healthy) for 20 years. More importantly, he's part of a small group of people who are infected with HIV, but whose bodies have managed to naturally stave off symptoms of the illness. In some cases, these people, called long-term non-progressors, even end up with virus levels so low as to be nearly undetectable.

Fascinatingly, Donor 45 is NOT one of those patients. His viral load is similar to that of people who get sick. That's because his immune system doesn't destroy HIV. Instead, it produces antibodies that prevent HIV from invading his cells.

All people infected with HIV produce antibodies in response to the infection. What's different is that Donor 45's antibodies actually work. For reasons that aren't clearly understood, most antibodies against HIV either aren't effective at all, or are only effective against certain strains—not terribly useful with a virus that mutates as frequently as HIV does. Donor 45's are capable of controlling as much as 91% of HIV strains. So he stays healthy, even while the virus continues to live in his body. People like Donor 46 can still infect others, but they, themselves, might live entirely normal lifespans without significant illness.

Some good links to read more about non-progressors:

New York Times: AIDS and the secret of long-term survivors
PBS Frontline: How HIV works and why some people are "immune"
The Body: Compilation of several personal stories from long-term non-progressors as well as science and analysis about why some people survive
Two studies recruiting long-term non-progressors for further research

US Scientists isolate antibodies effective against 91 of HIV strains
FULL ARTICLE
U.S. Scientists Isolate Antibodies Effective Against 91% of HIV Strains
Published 1, July 9, 2010 Science , Society , Torts 8 Comments

We have an extraordinary breakthrough in the fights against AIDS. U.S. scientists have reported that they have isolated three powerful antibodies for HIV — one of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains.

This could be the basis for an eventual vaccine for AIDS. The antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known only as “Donor 45.”

This is wonderful news and the scientists are going to start “blending” antibodies to see if they can knock out all strains.

What is interesting legally in these breakthrough moments is the the source for the antibodies is rarely given significant value for his unique antibodies. This has been an issue that has repeatedly been raised and courts have generally favored hospitals and researchers in blocking demands for compensation. This issue was raised in Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120, 271 Cal. Rptr. 146, 793 P.2d 479 (1991). In that case, Moore was treated for hairy cell leukemia at UCLA Medical Center. His doctor, Dr. David W. Golde and others soon realized that Moore’s cells were promising for genetic research. Moore was never told that his cells were being used for research and was never told that blood and tissue samples were being taken specifically for such research. Indeed, he alleged that follow up visits were scheduled primarily to harvest such material.

Golde patented a cell line using Moore’s cells and he and his colleagues made a great deal of money. Moore argued conversion and lost. The court ruled that he had no expectation that such blood and tissue would be returned — even though he would have likely demanded compensation if he knew that he was being harvested for valuable genetic material. The most that the courts were willing to give Moore was a ruling that the hospital violated the duty of disclosure and the requirement of consent. However, damages for such torts are far less than what he would have received under a conversion claim.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Sandoz
Sandoz, Momenta get FDA approval to make generic version of blood thinner Lovenox
July 24, 2010|By Andrew Zajac, Tribune Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington —

In a closely watched decision, the Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved an application by German drug maker Sandoz and Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., to make the first generic version of the widely used blood thinner Lovenox.

The approval positions Momenta and Sandoz to offer a cheaper but still lucrative alternative to Lovenox, which had sales of $4.5 billion in 2009, making it the 15th-bestselling drug in the world.

Defendants; Dr. David W. Golde, Regents of the University of CA, Shirley G. Quan, Genetics Institute, Inc. and Sandoz Pharma Co.
II. Facts

. . . The plaintiff is John Moore (Moore), who underwent treatment for hairy-cell leukemia at the Medical Center of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA Medical Center). The five defendants are: (1) Dr. David W. Golde (Golde), a physician who attended Moore at UCLA Medical Center; (2) the Regents of the University of California (Regents), who own and operate the university; (3) Shirley G. Quan, a researcher employed by the Regents; (4) Genetics Institute, Inc. (Genetics Institute); and (5) Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corporation and related entities (collectively Sandoz).


Moore v. Regents of the University of California
EXCERPT:
Moore v. Regents of the University of California (51 Cal. 3d 120; 271 Cal. Rptr. 146; 793 P.2d 479) was a Supreme Court of California case settled on July 9, 1990. John Moore underwent treatment for hairy cell leukemia at the Medical Center of the University of California at Los Angeles under the supervision of Dr. David W. Golde. Moore's cancer was later developed into a cell line that was commercialized, and the court ruled that Moore had no right to profits from the commercialization of anything developed from his discarded body parts.

HeLa and HIV

HeLa-LAV, an epithelial cell line stably infected with HIV-1

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

Jörg Berg, a, Barbara Doeb, Kathelyn S. Steimerb and Matthias Wabla

aDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

bChiron Corporation, Emeryville, California, U.S.A.

Accepted 8 May 1991. Available online 12 November 2002.

Abstract
An HeLa-LAV cell line was established by infecting and subcloning previously described CD4-expressing HeLa cells with HIV-1. Cells of this line stably synthesize all major HIV proteins, release infectious particles of HIV-1, but do not die even after long term culture. More than 90% of the cells express the envelope protein gp120 on the surface. The cells can be easily and efficiently labeled with 51chromium, and exhibit a low spontaneous release. Because they are susceptible to killing by allogeneic cytotoxic T cells (CTL) when targeted to gp120, they ought to be a useful source of target cells in any kind of HIV-specific killing assays. The cells may also help studies on HIV replication in non-lymphatic/non-monocytic cells. The HeLa-LAV cell line will be freely available from the AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program.

Keywords: HeLa-LAV cell; HeLaT4+ cell; HIV-1 infection; 51Chromium release assay

Correspondence to: Jörg Berg, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0414, U.S.A.

Medical Apartheid Experimentation
EXCERPT:
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This groundbreaking study documents that the infamous Tuskegee experiments, in which black syphilitic men were studied but not treated, was simply the most publicized in a long, and continuing, history of the American medical establishment using African-Americans as unwitting or unwilling human guinea pigs. Washington, a journalist and bioethicist who has worked at Harvard Medical School and Tuskegee University, has accumulated a wealth of documentation, beginning with Thomas Jefferson exposing hundreds of slaves to an untried smallpox vaccine before using it on whites, to the 1990s, when the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University ran drug experiments on African-American and black Dominican boys to determine a genetic predisposition for "disruptive behavior." Washington is a great storyteller, and in addition to giving us an abundance of information on "scientific racism," the book, even at its most distressing, is compulsively readable. It covers a wide range of topics—the history of hospitals not charging black patients so that, after death, their bodies could be used for anatomy classes; the exhaustive research done on black prisoners throughout the 20th century—and paints a powerful and disturbing portrait of medicine, race, sex and the abuse of power. (Dec. 26)