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LETTERS: Peter J Waugh Getting ethics into practice: Comparing Alder Hey with Tuskegee is not helpful BMJ 2004; 329: 513-a [Full text]

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Ethics and Alder Hey

Andrew N Bamji   (3 September 2004)

Ethics and Alder Hey 3 September 2004
Andrew N Bamji, Consultant (rheumatology/rehabilitation) Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, Kent DA14 6LT Send response to journal: Re: Ethics and Alder Hey	This most recent exchange citing the Alder Hey "incident" has finally forced me to ask a simple question: how many people who have commented on the affair have actually read the report? From all that I have seen written I suspect that most read only the summary and conclusions. I have read the report in full. At the time I was a Clinical Director with responsibility for pathology. The summary and conclusions said many things but allowed, in my view, the whole sequence of events to be obscured and blame to be placed in the wrong place. At Alder Hey a university appointment was planned. The job description for the post was greeted with considerable reservation by clinicians, who thought it was unworkable, but the appointment nevertheless went ahead. The appointee was greeted with similar reservations by the clinicians, who thought he was not suitable, but they were overruled. When, in the event, the clinicians' concerns were all too amply vindicated, it was they and their hospital, and not the university, who carried the can for the failure of an individual. I would be interested to learn whether this view is shared by others. Those who did not approach the main body of the report should perhaps do so; it reads like a detective thriller and in a strange way I found it quite compelling. Competing interests: None declared