Here in America, we like to believe that our legal system can right all wrongs. That's how it usually happens on "Boston Legal" and other TV shows. Somebody in a wheelchair sues, and they get millions of dollars in damages.
Unfortunately, access to the legal system isn't free or cheap. It's expensive and difficult. The kids would have to know where to go, whom to ask, and whether they have a claim at all, and they would have to pitch their case to a lawyer. They might endure months or years of depositions and subpoenas -- and these are people described as "drug-addled, developmentally disabled, emotionally crippled survivors of a lifetime under lock and key." Finally, they would have to have evidence -- medical records -- which even they, personally, have been denied already. (The New York State Department of Health has asked for thousands of dollars in copying costs.) The investigations of the Incarnation scandal so far have not only lacked evidence, they have been reported in the media -- wrongly, and also without evidence -- as finding that the drugs did not harm the children. This case has already been tried in The New York Times in 2005 and 2009, and the kids lost.
Nonetheless, we think they have an extremely strong case.
An Ethical Question
Should they have been given money before even participating in the trials? The ethical question of offering money to parents and caregivers to use their kids in trials is, however, unsettled and . . . well, unsettling. Trading the life of a child for cash -- even if the child receives the money directly -- is wrong. In this case, it could even be a racket: keeping whole populations in poverty so that they will endure any degradation or risk to escape it. We should reject this grim economics. In any case, though, the ICC "guinea pig kids" received no money at all. Isn't that worse?
