Should trial sponsors pay for treatment?

What is the linkurl:responsibility of a company sponsoring a clinical trial;http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/01/31/when-drug-trials-go-wrong/ when one of its participants gets sick? That's the theme of a linkurl:story;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120173515260330205.html in today's Wall Street Journal. As Sarah Rubenstein reports, the family of a woman who took part in a clinical trial of a drug for Parkinson's disease is suing the sponsors and university organizers of the trial. They say the trial -- in which doctors implanted a drug called Spheramine into her brain -- is responsible for the fact that the woman is ''wheelchair-bound and living in a nursing home.'' Rubenstein writes that the case is in a legal void surrounding clinical trials. ''Federal law does not require researchers to compensate participants harmed in such trials,'' she notes. All the law requires is that consent forms say whether participants will get compensation for research-related injuries. The question of trial sponsor responsibility was also the question...