UCLA recently reopened a case examining the involvement of two UCLA researchers with controversial malariotherapy experiments, which involve the injection a curable form of malaria into human HIV patients.

The initial allegations were brought to the attention of the Institutional Review Board of the UCLA Office of Protection of Research Subjects in early October of last year through an anonymous e-mail directed to Steven Peckman, associate director of Human Subjects Research for the OPRS.

In December the IRB came to the decision that Professor John Fahey and Najib Aziz had not engaged or collaborated in the malariotherapy research conducted in China by the Heimlich Institute, a nonprofit organization in Cincinnati, Ohio.

According to Peckman, the IRB has received additional information and the allegations are again under review.

Peckman could not be reached Monday to explain what new evidence had been received.

A UCLA statement issued in November of last year stated that Fahey “did not collaborate on the malaria studies” and that “UCLA intends to ask Dr. Heimlich to omit UCLA from all references relating to the malaria studies or other Heimlich Institute research.”

Fahey, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, conducts AIDS research with the UCLA AIDS Institute.

Fahey also offered AIDS control training to visiting scholars from developing countries under the UCLA Fogarty AIDS International Training and Researching Program established in 1997.

Aziz works as an immunology shared research supervisor for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Center for Health Sciences.

Fahey and Aziz have collaborated on multiple research papers in the past.

Both researchers are continuing to work in full capacity during the ongoing investigation.

A medical paper on malariotherapy published in 1999 and co-authored by Heimlich, known for inventing the Heimlich maneuver, acknowledges Fahey and Aziz for their support and contributions to the research.

The Heimlich Institute’s online newsletter also states that Fahey visited malariotherapy patients in China after requesting to take part in the research in 1996.

Heimlich proposed malariotherapy as a treatment for HIV in the early 1990s, claiming the induced fevers could restore a weakened immune system.

In April of 1993 the Center for Disease Control issued a public health warning against malariotherapy for HIV treatment.

The IRB, responsible for reviewing all research protocol and allegations involving the use of human and animal subjects, has no regulatory authority over Heimlich, according to Peckman.