At National Women’s Hospital in Auckland, Associate Professor Herb Green treated carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the cervix as a benign condition and generally did not provide the treatment then accepted for a precancerous lesion. After joining the hospital in 1973, obstetrician and gynaecologist Ron Jones challenged that approach with pathologist Jock McLean and specialist Bill McIndoe. Their 1984 paper, “The invasive potential of carcinoma in situ of the cervix,” documented women under Green’s care who later developed invasive cervical cancer; some died. The source says the patients had not consented to what became known as Green’s “experiment.”
The findings were initially ignored by much of the medical establishment. Journalists Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle brought the case to public attention in a 1987 Metro article, prompting the Cartwright Inquiry, led by Silvia Cartwright. The inquiry found the treatment unethical and concluded that patients’ consent had not been obtained. Jones faced professional ostracism, while later analyses of roughly 45 years of patient records by Jones and colleagues David Skegg and Charlotte Paul supported CIS as a cancer precursor and linked limited treatment to invasive disease. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists issued a public apology in 2017; the historical interpretation remains contested by author Linda Bryder, who argued in a 2009 book that there was no experiment and that the inquiry was wrong.
