Student paper: Regents play innocent in student suicide

The Minnesota Daily chastises the University of Minnesota Board of Regents for dismissing eight bioethicists’s call for an independent investigation into the suicide of Dan Markingson, a U student who participated in a U of M psychiatric research study:

The University seems to think that because it was not held liable in court for Markingson’s death, it did nothing wrong. This is false; it is a cynical excuse to keep corporate drug money flowing into the University.

The regents’ decision fundamentally undermines our mission: Supposedly, the University is “dedicated to … the search for truth.” But the letter makes it clear that corporate research cash is more important to the University than patient safety and transparency.

About the blogger

Alex Friedrich

afriedrich@mpr.org

Alex Friedrich reports on higher education issues for MPR News. Among the stories he has covered: the fall of the Berlin Wall, aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, 2003 Moscow suicide bombing and 2004 presidential elections in the Republic of Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s in European political economy from the London School of Economics.

Anonymous

My comment, left on Minnesota Daily Website:

Congratulations to the Daily for this fine editorial.

The Chairman of the Board of Regents recently chastised the Daily for an error in fact. This error by the Regents is, in fact, more egregious.

In Chair Allens words: “Having a rich and vibrant discussion on significant issues is an important part of any editorial page.”

But if it only stays on the editorial page it really does not matter. This is the same group who turned down out of hand the request by the Regent’s professors to stop the deconstruction of the Graduate School. They now turn down the request of a significant number of our bioethics faculty. Is bioethics at the University of Minnesota only a theoretical discipline?

I suggest that the Regents are very much out of touch with the community on this issue.

I absolutely agree with the Daily’s conclusion:

Refusing to set up an independent investigation is a willfully ignorant attempt to sweep the Markingson case under the rug and damages the integrity of the entire University.

And if people do not believe that this issue reflects badly on the University at the national level, then they have not been paying attention.

Chair Allen – how about a vibrant discussion?