Editorial: Reasonable settlement in Havasupai blood case

Opinion

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

"A bitter seven-year legal struggle between an impoverished Indian tribe and scientists at Arizona State University reached a reasonable settlement when the university’s regents agreed to pay $700,000 and to collaborate on other forms of assistance dealing with health, education and economic development. Left unresolved was the underlying question of how scientists can best obtain “informed consent” from patients whose education and command of English may be limited.

As described by Amy Harmon in recent Times articles, the struggle pitted a tiny tribe living deep inside the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai Indians, against Arizona State researchers who started drawing blood samples for genetic studies two decades ago. The researchers had been asked to help the Indians cope with a devastatingly high rate of diabetes that led to amputations and forced many Indians to leave the canyon for dialysis.

The researchers did look for gene variants that might cause diabetes, but also for genes linked to other conditions as well. The Indians, who stumbled onto this research years later, took offense at studies of schizophrenia and inbreeding, which they thought cast a bad light on the tribe. They also deplored research suggesting that their tribe’s ancestors had come to North America from Asia and had not originated in the Grand Canyon as their traditional myths contended."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Tribal Genes and a Fair Settlement (The New York Times 4/27)

Arizona Appeals Court Decision:
Havasupai Tribe v. Arizona Board of Regents (November 30, 2008)