Ten Years Later: Jesse Gelsinger’s Death and Human Subjects Protection

October 22, 2009

Last month marked the tenth anniversary of Jesse Gelsinger’s death. While perhaps not quite a household name, Gelsinger is vividly remembered among many medical researchers. His death during a gene therapy clinical trial in September 1999 rocked the field like nothing else since the Tuskegee experiments. But sadly, the questionable research practices that led to Gelsinger’s death have only become more troublesome in the past decade. Indeed, protections for clinical trial participants seem to be waning at the very moment they are needed most. (Bioethics Forum)