Members of a First Nation in Canada have launched a lawsuit alleging they were subjected to a secret medical experiment without their consent that left them feeling “violated and humiliated”.
The class-action lawsuit, which was certified by the Nova Scotia supreme court in early February, revives the painful history of Canada conducting medical experiments on Indigenous peoples and the persistent discrimination they continue to face within the country’s healthcare system.
In a statement of claim, Chief Andrea Paul, the lead plaintiff, says she and 60 other members of the Pictou Landing First Nation participated in an MRI in 2017 for a medical research project administered by the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds.
But after the test finished, staff at the hospital in Halifax kept her for a second test.
“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,” 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.
