Medical board finds UCLA researcher violated federal laws

LOS ANGELES (AP) A medical oversight board found that a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles violated federal laws by participating in medical studies involving AIDS patients in China who were injected with malaria-infected blood.

The university said Tuesday that the oversight board has determined that microbiology professor John L. Fahey was indirectly involved with the experiments, which seek to use the immune reaction induced by malaria as a possible treatment for AIDS. A second UCLA researcher, who also was being investigated, was not found to have broken any rules.

The research, known as malariotherapy, was conducted by Chinese scientists for the Cincinnati-based Heimlich Institute, founded by Dr. Henry Heimlich, creator of the anti-choking maneuver that bears his name. The research, submitted by Heimlich in the late 1980s, is viewed with skepticism by mainstream AIDS researchers.

Heimlich argues that high fevers induced by the malaria strain would kill viruses, including HIV. He said that the malaria should be given by a blood injection and allowed to progress for about three weeks before being cured by quinine and other drugs.

A statement issued by UCLA's institutional review board, which reviews medical experiments involving human subjects, found that Fahey did not participate directly in the controversial trials, but did, without requisite permission from the board, evaluate data and biological samples brought to the university by a Chinese scientist.

University administrators will review the findings to determine whether discipline is required, UCLA spokesman Max Benavidez said.

Fahey said in a statement Tuesday that he ``regrets the misunderstanding this matter has caused.''

He said he became indirectly involved in the malariotherapy research in 1997, when he was training a Chinese scientist, Xiao Ping Chen, during a three-month program at UCLA. Fahey said that was the only time specimens from malariotherapy patients were at UCLA.

UCLA's review board said Fahey violated federal regulations and school policy for the protection of human subjects by not seeking approval from the university before allowing Chen to conduct research at UCLA.

``The feeling here is that Dr. Fahey made an honest mistake,'' said Steven Peckman, UCLA's associate director for human subjects research. ``He has provided substantial assurances of his compliance in the future.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)