How Many Kids Did ACS Expose to Experimental HIV Drugs?
Three years ago, the city Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) said that experimental HIV/AIDS drug trials involved only 90 foster kids. Later they quietly nudged the number to “more than 100,” and later still they said 465. In the latest accounting, however, the number of possible cases has ballooned to 663 — and it may go higher still. Not only that, it appears that in many cases the researchers didn’t have parental consent. ACS is entrusted to protect some of the city’s most vulnerable children. Yet ACS is unsure how many kids under its care were subjected to experimentation. What kind of protection is that? We need an independent Office of the Child Advocate with subpoena power and access to confidential child welfare documents. In that way we can discover — and fix — problems as they occur, not learn about them years later. Such an office would provide permanent oversight of the dysfunctional child welfare system, including ACS and its contract agencies. The state Legis
