Doctors in Denial

When Dr Ron Jones joined the staff of National Women's Hospital in Auckland in 1973 as a junior obstetrician and gynecologist, Professor Herbert Green's study into the natural history of carcinoma in-situ of the cervix (CIS) – later called 'the unfortunate experiment' – had been in progress for seven years. By the mid-1960s there was almost universal agreement among gynaecologists and pathologists worldwide that CIS was a precursor of cancer, requiring complete removal. Green, however, believed otherwise, and embarked on a study of women with CIS, without their consent, that involved merely observing, rather than definitively treating them. Many women subsequently developed cancer and some died. Since that time there have been attempts to cast Green's work in a more generous light. This rewriting of history has spurred Ron Jones to set the record straight by telling his personal story.