By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A panel of experts offered preliminary guidelines on Friday for clinical tests on prison inmates across the country, promising not to repeat the mistakes of the past. In the 1950's, American inmates were intentionally infected with live cancer cells, herpes, ringworm, hepatitis and syphilis, in the name of medical research. When the experiments were uncovered in the 1970's, they were stopped, and research in prisons was banned in some states and severely curtailed in others.

But with the advent of AIDS and hepatitis C, prisoners are asking to be allowed to participate in medical research. As a result, a panel of 16 AIDS researchers, medical ethicists, lawyers and prisoner advocates gathered at Brown University here this week to draft guidelines for such research. The guidelines will be reviewed by other experts and submitted to medical and governmental organizations.

A member of the panel, Anne S. De Groot, said prisoners who had AIDS must be given access to cutting-edge clinical tests, but must also be protected from possible abuses.

De Groot said clinical tests were being done in some prisons and jails across the country, and were regulated under Federal guidelines. But, she said, the guidelines say little about prisoner participation in research, and there is little oversight.

The three-day conference was convened by the Brown University AIDS Program and the H.I.V. in Prisons Program of Yale University.

De Groot said the panel recommended that prisons where research is conducted must have high-quality medical care already available, so inmates do not feel coerced into research programs simply to get proper treatment.

The panel also said the research in prisons should be reviewed by former inmates as impartial observers, just as clinical trials are reviewed on the outside.