January 28, 2002

Contact: Karen Cooper, law school, (785) 864-4531.

KU grad Alan Milstein, noted medical malpractice attorney, to speak Feb. 8

LAWRENCE -- A nationally known attorney and University of Kansas graduate the Washington Post dubbed "the man to see when it comes to medical research abuse cases" will speak at his alma mater Friday, Feb. 8.

Alan Milstein, will give a free public lecture at 12:30 p.m. in Room 104 Green Hall at the KU School of Law. The law school and the School of Medicine sponsor the lecture.

Milstein will speak about his experiences in the wrongful death and fraud lawsuit he filed on behalf of the family of Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old who died in a gene therapy experiment at the University of Pennsylvania and whose death prompted a national investigation that uncovered abuses at dozens of other institutions.

Milstein, who earned a master's degree in American studies at KU in 1978, also filed suit against the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, a world-renowned cancer institute, and recently he represented soldiers suffering adverse reactions to the anthrax vaccine.

A recent Washington Post article described Milstein as "pursuing an aggressive legal strategy that intimidates and infuriates many in the clinical research world."

"His scorched-earth tactics -- suing anyone even remotely implicated in harming his clients -- have unnerved his academic opponents, among them some of the nation's most prestigious medical schools and research institutions," journalist Jennifer Washburn wrote in the article.

Milstein also is trying to establish a human rights law precedent by invoking the Nuremberg Code as a standard of conduct for medical research in the U.S.

The code was established in the 1949 "Doctors Trial," in which Hitler's doctor, Karl Brandt, and 22 others were charged with war crimes for barbaric experiments performed on Jews and other minorities. Milstein hopes the U.S. Supreme Court one day will rule on the code's use in U.S. courts.

An adjunct faculty member of the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, Milstein teaches computer law. He wrote "How to Handle Computer Software Litigation" and "How to Handle PCB Litigation." In addition, he has lectured extensively on fire litigation and on bioethics in clinical trials.