Dan Markingson's mother has waited nearly a decade for researchers in a University of Minnesota drug study to be held accountable for the suicide of her son.
A small piece of that accountability came when state regulators and former U of M social worker Jean Kenney reached an agreement about actions she must take as a result of errors she made in Markingson's care during the study.
"It is the first public acknowledgement of the wrongs that were done," said Mike Howard, a close friend to Markingson's mother, Mary Weiss.
Markingson's death in May 2004, during a clinical trial of antipsychotic drugs, has had ripple effects at the university, including a lawsuit, a federal probe and an overhaul of the school's ethics standards for clinical trials.
But no one involved in the fateful study had suffered any sanctions until now.
Even the action regarding Kenney, issued Friday by the Minnesota Board of Social Work, isn't a disciplinary action; it is listed only as an "agreement for correction action." The unusual licensing document requires that Kenney complete 18 hours of training and write a report on whether it alters her view of her conduct in the drug trial.
In some ways, the document raises more questions about the psychiatrists who led the study -- and why they put Kenney in a role beyond her scope of training -- than about Kenney herself, Howard said.
"It's a pretty big black mark over there on how things were being done," Howard said.