OHSU, SCHOOLS SUED OVER DRUG TESTING STUDY

PORTLAND - Oregon Health & Science University and 14 school districts
around the state are being sued in federal court over a study of drug
testing for high school students.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court last week, seeks an
injunction to halt the university's drug-testing study and compensation for
"psychological, social and economic harm" suffered by thousands of Oregon
students and their parents.

The school districts are Astoria, Creswell, Dallas, Lincoln County,
McKenzie, Monroe, Oakridge, Philomath, Santiam Canyon, Scio, Sherman
County, Silverton and Warrenton-Hammond Gervais.

A New Jersey law firm that has a national reputation for challenging the
ethics of human experiments at some of the nation's leading medical
institutions is leading the legal fight.

The firm said student athletes were coerced to take part in the
drug-testing experiment, which the lawyers call a violation of legal and
ethical requirements for voluntary participation in human research.

The lawsuit claims that students who refused to go along with random urine
tests were barred from playing sports and, according to the lawsuit,
subjected to harassment and intimidation.

"That's hardly voluntary," lead attorney Alan Milstein of Pennsauken, N.J.,
said. "Everybody knows, after Nuremberg, informed consent must be
voluntary," he said, referring to the code of research ethics established
after German experiments during World War II.

Student-athletes at seven of the schools face random drug tests with no
advance warning. Researchers collect urine samples and test them for
anabolic steroids and street drugs including cocaine, marijuana and
methamphetamine. Students at six other schools serve as a control group
with no drug-testing policy.

OHSU denies any wrongdoing. A spokesman said the study, known as Saturn,
complies with all state and federal regulations. An institutional review
board, comprising OHSU researchers and lawyers responsible for protecting
the rights and welfare of research volunteers, approved the study before it
began, spokesman Martin Munguia said.

Dr. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at OHSU, designed the Saturn
study to show whether a program of random screening could reduce drug use.
Goldberg received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of
Health in 2000 to carry out the three-year study at 18 Oregon high schools.

The study ends next year. Preliminary results are due to be published later
this year.

At least two Dallas High School students, Amy Cordy and Beth Wade, strongly
objected to the testing program and have become plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, they say they suffered humiliation, anguish, physical and
emotional distress and damaged reputations because of the drug-testing study.

Dallas School District Superintendent Dave Novotney said most student
athletes and their parents have accepted the use of mandatory drug-testing
since his district joined the Saturn study.

"There has been only very mild protest at this point," Novotney said.

Two years ago, Ginelle Weber, who would have been a senior at Oakridge next
fall, sued the district with the backing of the American Civil Liberties
Union after her refusal to consent to random drug testing cost her a spot
on the school's volleyball team.

Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure upheld the Oakridge district's policy
last year. The Webers appealed to the state Court of Appeals, which heard
the case in March and is expected to return a decision within the next year.

The Oakridge district's policy came out of an Oregon Health Sciences
University study.