A class action lawsuit has been launched by an indigenous group in Canada alleging they were subjected to a secret medical experiment in 2017 without their consent that left them feeling “violated and humiliated”.
The lawsuit, which was certified by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court last month, revives the painful history of Canada conducting medical experiments on indigenous people, and the persistent discrimination they continue to face in the country’s healthcare system.
The Guardian reports that in a statement of claim, Chief Andrea Paul, the lead plaintiff, said she and 60 other members of the Pictou Landing First Nation underwent an MRI in 2017 for a medical research project administered by the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds.
But after the test finished, hospital staff kept her for a second test.
“As she lay inside the MRI chamber… the MRI scans generated data that revealed intimate medical information about her body without her knowledge or consent,” reads the statement of claim. “She had been singled out for the one reason – she was Mi’kmaq.”
A year later, Paul, who also serves as regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations in Nova Scotia, learned that two radiologists had allegedly used the second procedure to conduct MRI elastography to study the livers of indigenous subjects, without their knowledge or consent.
The lawsuit named radiologists Robert Miller and Sharon Clarke as defendants.
According to the claim, Miller met Paul in 2018 and told her the MRI had been used for a broader research project titled “MRI Findings of Liver Disease in an Atlantic Canada First Nations Population”.
Miller, an associate professor at Dalhousie University’s faculty of medicine who previously served as president of the Canadian Association of Radiology, allegedly told her the findings had been shared with a radiology conference – after initially denying disclosing the test results.
Neither researchers with the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds nor the plaintiffs was given the results of the test.
Canada has a dark history for its treatment of indigenous peoples. In the 1940s, nearly 1 300 indigenous children across Canada were starved for studies about the effects of malnutrition as part of a government-run study, while women have also been sterilised against their will.
The most recent claims said “Chief Andrea felt powerless, vulnerable and discriminated against because she was Mi’kmaq”.
She and 60 members of Pictou Landing are seeking a declaration from the defendants for invasion of privacy, unlawful imprisonment, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, charter breaches and damages.
They also argue the tests amount to assault and battery because the MRI scan procedures “amount to a medical procedure that was performed on (the plaintiffs) without their knowledge or informed consent”.
A lawyer for the two radiologists has said neither will provide comment.
None of the allegations has been tested in court and no hearing dates have been set.
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