In Canada, Indigenous people were subjected to a humiliating secret medical experiment.

Indigenous people in Canada are suing over an alleged secret Canadian medical experiment. Indigenous people claim in the lawsuit that radiologists subjected them to secret research without their knowledge or consent.

Indigenous people in Canada have filed a lawsuit alleging they were subjected to a secret medical experiment without their consent that left them feeling “abused and humiliated.”

According to The Guardian, the class-action lawsuit, which was approved by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in early February, resurrects Canada’s painful history of medical experimentation on Indigenous people and the persistent discrimination they continue to face in the country’s health care system.

In the statement of claim, Chief Andrea Paul, the lead plaintiff, claims she and 60 other members of the Pictou Landing First Nation participated in magnetic resonance imaging scans in 2017 as part of a medical research project conducted by the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds.

But after the test was completed, hospital staff in Halifax left her for re-examination.

“As she lay in the claustrophobic MRI chamber, holding her breath and cowering from the loud banging sounds around her, the MRI scan generated data that revealed intimate medical information about her body without her knowledge or consent,” the lawsuit states. “She was singled out for one reason – she was from the Mi’kmaq people.” The Mi’kmaq are a Native American people living in northeastern New England, the Atlantic provinces of Canada and the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec.

A year later, Andrea Paul, who is also the regional director of the Assembly of First Nations in Nova Scotia, learned that two radiologists allegedly used a second procedure to perform MRI elastography to study the livers of First Nations people without their knowledge or consent.

The class action lawsuit names radiologists Robert Miller and Sharon Clark as defendants. According to the lawsuit, Miller met with Paul in 2018 and told her that the MRI was being used for a broader research project called “MRI Findings of Liver Disease in First Nations Peoples of Atlantic Canada.” Miller, an associate professor at Dalhousie University’s faculty of medicine who previously served as president of the Canadian Association of Radiologists, allegedly told her the results were presented at a radiology conference after initially denying disclosing the test results.

Neither the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds researchers nor the plaintiffs were provided with the test results.

Canada has a dark history of treating Indigenous people under the guise of healthcare, and the deadly consequences of systemic racism continue to this day, The Guardian states.

In the 1940s, nearly 1,300 Indigenous children across Canada were starved to death to study the effects of malnutrition as part of a government study. Indigenous women have also been sterilized against their will, prompting rights groups to call for an end to the practice.

“Knowing Canada’s long history of subjecting Indigenous people to cruel medical experiments… and affirming the right of Indigenous peoples to own and control Indigenous research data, Chief Andrea felt powerless, vulnerable and discriminated against because she is Mi’kmaq.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Indigenous people are “reluctant to participate in medical research and receive treatment from non-Indigenous doctors, health centers and hospitals” due to a legacy of abuse.

“There is a historical and scientifically based mistrust in the health care system,” the lawsuit says. Paul’s lawsuit says she worked to persuade community members to participate in the initial MRI testing, and the actions of the two radiologists symbolize the mistrust experienced by Indigenous communities.

Andrea Paul and 60 members of Pictou Landing are seeking claims from the defendants of invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, violation of bylaws and damages. They also argue that the tests amount to assault and battery because the MRI procedures “are equivalent to a medical procedure that was performed [истцам] without their knowledge or informed consent.”