• Timeline of the Enquiry

    Timeline & Summary

    ChronologySummary of Findings & RecommendationsThe Story of the Unfortunate Experiment CHRONOLOGY May 1990 July l990 August 1990 September 1990 October 1990 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE REPORT OF THE CERVICAL CANCER INQUIRY 1988prepared by Sandra Coney Abbreviations:Auckland Hospital Board (AHB);National Women’s Hospital (NWH);Postgraduate School (PGS);Carcinoma in situ (CIS) CONTENTS: The 1966 Study of Cervical Carcinoma In Situ Expressions of Concern about the Study Adequacy of Treatment Recall of Women Medical Ethics What the Women Knew Of the women the judge interviewed, only one knew she was being studied. “I disagree with the suggestion of one witness that many patients lack the intelligence to grasp essential information. In general,…

  • University of Auckland - Lynda Bryder

    The University of Auckland

    Overview of Complaints to the The University of Auckland requesting correction of errors in Professor Linda Bryder’s book published by Auckland University PressClare Matheson Complaint to The University of Auckland and the University responseSandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle Complaint to The University of AucklandReply from The University of Auckland to Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle COMPLAINTS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLANDProfessor Bryder is a professor at The University of Auckland. Her book was first published by the University of Auckland Press in 2009, before being published in Britain in 2010. Challenges about errors in the book have raised significant issues concerning the responsibility for adhering to the precepts of ethical…

  • Findings,  Uncategorized

    The Cartwright Report

    The New Zealand Government published the Cartwright Report on 5th August 1988. The Minister of Health, David Caygill, committed the government to implementation of the Reports numerous recommendations which were directed to a thorough reform medicine to ensure that such a violation of patient’s human rights could not happen again. The full report is availabile on the NSU website.

  • University of Auckland - Lynda Bryder

    Recent Controversy Concerning Professor Linda Bryder’s Historical Revisionism

    Controversy in the New Zealand Medical Journal, 2010Professor Ron Jones asks ‘Why Did So Many Women Develop Cancer’ in the New Zealand Medical Journal, 2010Professor Charlotte Paul critiques Professor Bryder’s book, 2010Phillida Bunkle points out the consequences of Professor Bryder’s lack of familiarity with the patient case histories in the New Zealand Medical Journal, letters, 2010Phillida Bunkle analyses the weakness of professor Bryder’s argument in the Women’s Studies Journal, 2010 CONTROVERSY IN THE NEW ZEALAND MEDICAL JOURNALThe publication of Professor Linda Bryder’s revisionist volumes denying the occurrence of the Unfortunate Experiment, or harm to patients aroused controversy in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 2010. Professor Ron Jones, a gynaecologist…

  • Research Ethics

    Research Participants Need Protection

    Wed, 12 Oct 2011 The Government must not downgrade the system for ethical review of health research, believes Emeritus Prof Charlotte Paul. The Government is proposing to downgrade the protection of participants in health research, in response to a Health Select Committee report that argues for fast-tracking clinical research trials but gives scant consideration to the protection of research participants. If the Government’s proposal goes ahead, careful safeguards created in the aftermath of the Cartwright Inquiry will be lost. Instead of a system of rigorous review by ethics committees, the proposal allows “expedited review” (delegating the chairperson to approve summarised applications) for some clinical trials. It also almost halves the…

  • Medical Response

    Medical Follow-up

    Lancet OncologyAustralia & New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology LANCET ONCOLOGYIn May 2008 Margaret McCredie, Charlotte Paul and others published a study in Lancet Oncology (Vol. 9 (5) which while acknowledging that the Unfortunate Experiment had been unethical, made ethical use of the data it had generated to extract as much information as possible about the long term efficacy of treating women with precancerous lesions.The study re-examined the original pathological specimens of women diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 3 (CIN3) at National Women’s Hospital between 1955 and 1974. (The diagnosis CIN3 has replaced the category of CIS and is somewhat more inclusive and precise that the older classification.). The…

  • 1984 Paper

    The ‘1984 McIndoe’ Paper

    In 1966, the management of the academic department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of The University of Auckland located at National Women’s Hospital formalised a proposal for prospective research into the ‘natural history’ of Carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the cervix. The study was to examine whether women diagnosed with CIS of the cervix went on to develop invasive cancer. In 1984, William McIndoe, the colposcopist at the hospital, Malcolm Mclean the pathologist, and gynaecologist Ron Jones published a paper in the prestigious journal Obstetrics and Gynecology with the help of Auckland University statistician Peter Mullins, which provided a retrospective analysis of the results. They reviewed the cases of 948 patients…

  • Cartwright Inquiry,  Pushback from Overseas

    Controversy and Feminist Input into the Inqury (2013)

    2013 marked 25 years since the publication of the Cartwright Report. The role of feminists in the initiation and conduct of the Inquiry remains controversial. In the paper (1), reproduced below, Phillida Bunkle analyses feminist input into the Inquiry and events over the subsequent five years leading to implementation of Cartwright’s reform recommendations. Bunkle’s analysis is based on careful consideration of original documents, particularly the three Submissions she, Sandra Coney, Dr. Forbes Williams and their counsel Dr. Rodney Harrison made to the Inquiry. Bunkle argues that feminists provided the blueprint for comprehensive reform and that the ideas on which it was based were derived from their experience in the Women’s…

  • Implementation,  Research Ethics

    Controversy 2012

    Controversy concerning the Cartwright Report and the reforms that flowed from it continued following the 2010 publication of an international reprint of Professor Linda Bryder’s book. Republished in Britain as Linda Bryder, Women’s bodies and medical science: An inquiry into cervical cancer. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2010) In 2011 the New Zealand Journal of History published a review by John Burrows of the Law Foundation, of The Cartwright Papers: Essays on the Cervical Cancer Inquiry 1987-88 published by Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, with support from the Law Foundation. This volume was edited by an Auckland University Associate Professor of Law, Joanna Manning. One third of the volume consisted of essays critical…