pediatricians involved in the trials say they are mystified by the onslaught. while powerful drugs do have side effects, many said, they remembered no fatal reactions. at incarnation, dr. nicholas said, no child had died of a reaction and "no child ever had an unexpected side effect."  he said that, with one exception, no children had been included in the trials without "absolute proof" by advanced testing methods that they were infected and not simply carrying their mother's antibodies. he said the exception was a trial that proved that by giving azt to pregnant, infected women and then to their newborns in the first six weeks of life it was possible to sharply reduce the rate of h.i.v. transmission from mother to child. he called that study "the most important clinical trial in the history of aids."  in response to the charge by some critics that hospitals should have appointed independent guardians for each child, doctors said the federal regulations require advocates only when a trial holds "no prospect of direct benefit" for the child. several said their hospitals appointed advocates anyway.  "this isn't tuskegee, it never was tuskegee, it never will be tuskegee," dr. borkowsky said. "this is something that has been blown totally out of proportion by, i think, people who are vying for office and looking for something to get them into the news."  columbia university medical center, which was found by federal officials to have "failed to have obtain sufficient information" in approving the participation of foster children in four trials, has acknowledged what it called a need to improve "how information is collected and decisions documented." but it said investigators had not questioned the appropriateness of enrolling children, the care they received, the research's value or the scientists' conduct.  as for the city's child services agency, officials say that in all the years since the drug trials, no family has sued or come to them with evidence of mistreatment. staff members, past and present, expressed pride in what they had done; the worst thing that could have happened, they said, would have been for the agency to have done nothing.  mr. mattingly, the agency's commissioner, said, "i would far rather be having this dialogue than one in which we tried to explain why my predecessors -- confronted by a medical epidemic of unforeseen magnitude -- did not do everything possible to get these children access to promising medication because they were in foster care. or because the rules and regulations designed to protect their interests were so complicated that no children got the lifesaving help."
belated charge ignites furor over aids drug trial