Suit alleges secret medical study
Dozens of Indigenous people have brought a lawsuit against two radiologists in Nova Scotia, accusing them of conducting MRI scans without their consent as part of a secret scientific study of their livers.
According to the lawsuit, 59 members of the Pictou Landing First Nation were subjected to invasive MRI scans between 2017 and 2018 for research purposes without their knowledge. The complaint was first filed to Nova Scotia’s Supreme Court in June 2020 and certified as a class-action this month.
According to the claim, Pictou Landing Chief Andrea Paul, the lead plaintiff, took part in a consensual MRI scan in March 2017 as part of a medical research project conducted by the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds at a research facility in Halifax.
Instead of being withdrawn from the MRI machine when the scan finished, the suit alleged Paul was kept in the scanner as part of a second, separate study into liver disease among First Nation populations.
“Chief Andrea was unaware of the Indigenous Study or that she was participating in it. As she lay inside the claustrophobic MRI chamber holding her breath and cringing from the loud banging sounds around her, the MRI scans generated data that revealed intimate medical information about her body without her knowledge or consent,” the suit said.
The lawsuit named radiologists Robert Miller and Sharon Clarke as the defendants, whom it accused of undertaking the separate MRI study. Based on the scans, the suit said, Miller and Clarke later presented their results to a conference in Halifax and in an unpublished research paper titled “MRI Findings of Liver Disease in an Atlantic Canada First Nations Population.”
When contacted by The Washington Post, a lawyer representing Miller and Clarke declined to comment. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Paul only learned about the other study in June 2018, after which the suit said dozens more members of the Pictou Landing First Nation also became aware that their livers had been studied without their consent between 2017 and 2018.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages from the defendants and declarations of invasion of privacy, unlawful imprisonment, assault and battery, negligence, breaches of fiduciary and trust duties, and breach of contract.