A cervical cancer survivor who was at the heart of the “Unfortunate Experiment” has hit out at the Auckland District Health Board’s first attempt at an apology to the women harmed in the study, after nearly three decades. Clare Matheson, 80, says DHB official Dr Margaret Wilsher’s expression of “sympathy” smacks of trying to excuse former staff for their role in what an inquiry by Dame Silvia Cartwright found was an unethical study.