U.S. study of Romanian children faces European challenge

By: Barry James

PARIS:— A study of institutionalized children in Romania by three U.S. universities and supported by the MacArthur Foundation is threatened with closure because of opposition by the European Parliament's primary supporter of Romania's bid to join the European Union.

The project seeks to determine whether children living in institutions are deprived of stimuli that are needed for their normal development. The U.S. researchers insist that it meets the highest medical and ethical criteria, but the European deputy, Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, questions it on both legal and moral grounds. It does not directly benefit the 210 children involved, she says, and it perpetuates the stereotype of Romania as a country that mistreats children in institutions and trafficks them for adoption abroad.

Because data and videotapes obtained in Bucharest are sent to the United States for analysis, Nicholson says, the project violates the EU's rules on data protection. This is important, she says, when there is so much evidence of pedophilia on the Internet. Although she does not suggest that the project is involved in anything underhanded, she expresses concern about the apparent lack of data security in the United States and the possibility that the video images could leak out.

The children are videotaped while at play and while carrying out tasks that are standard in child psychology, according to Sebastian Koga, project manager of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, which is supported by Tulane university and the Universities of Minnesota and Maryland.

The four-year-old study, now at the midway point, separates the children into three groups of 70 each, one living with their natural parents, one with foster families and the other in institutions. He said the results would published in peer-reviewed journals.

"The study demonstrates that there are certain critical or sensitive periods during brain development, then government policies should be guided by those periods," Koga said.

But now, he said, the criticism may force the Romanian government to close the project.

Nicholson said that it was obvious that children do better in foster or adoptive families and that there already was a wealth of research to support this. Even the Romanian government recognizes the fact, she said, and is working hard to close large institutions as soon as resources permit, and place children either into small groups or with families.

In fact, Nicholson said, there are now more children in institutions in the United States than in Romania, and she suggested that the reason the project went to Romania was because the universities were able to exploit lax government regulations (since tightened up to come closer to EU standards) and because it wanted to carry out experiments that would not be tolerated at home, including one that scans the brain waves of children by placing a cotton cap wired with electrodes on their heads. Koga said that this procedure was completely harmless, and that if the children fret about it, "we give up."

The dispute blew up recently at a news conference dealing with the achievements of children who have been raised in institutions. Nicholson condemned exploitation of the system without mentioning the U.S. project by name, but Romanian newspapers quickly tracked it down.

"It caught us totally off guard," said Charles Zeanah of Tulane University, principal investigator for the project, which he said was "strictly scientific and humanitarian." Contrary to what Nicholson alleged, he said there were not enough children in large institutions in the United States to be able to carry out a corresponding study there. The experiments in Bucharest were approved by the Ministry of Health, he said.

According to Koga, "what has happened in Romania has been a completely unwarranted scandal which has dragged the good name of the MacArthur Foundation through the newspapers with allegations of child abuse, exploitation for the purposes of adoption and tales of children being locked in dark rooms for experiments. This is damaging the reputation of three very prestigious universities."

Nicholson is unrepentant. She said she never made the remark attributed to her in one Romanian newspaper that the project was designed to test children for adoption. Nevertheless, the research being carried out in Bucharest, she said, could be used in research to find out why children adopted abroad sometimes fail to adapt to life in a new family and country.

Nicholson said that had the project promised the children scholarships, "we might have been prepared to bite the bullet" and accept it. But not only were the children getting nothing, she said, but the 70 institutionalized participants were being disadvantaged by having to remain in a home during the four-year program rather than being placed with foster families.

Furthermore, she said the program was housed in luxury "worthy of an international bank," while the other side of the wall hundreds of children languished in one of the worst and most impoverished institutions in Romania, one that the government would close if it had the resources.