FDA Grants Guinea Pig Status To US Citizens

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FDA Grants Guinea Pig Status To US

Citizens

 

 

 

 

 

February 28, 2006

 

FDA Grants Guinea Pig Status To US Citizens

by Evelyn Pringle

 

http://www.opednews.com

 

" It is outrageous that, for all intents and purposes, the FDA

allowed a

clinical trial to proceed, which makes every citizen in the United

States a potential " guinea pig, " without providing a practical,

informative warning to the public. "

 

The statement of outrage above was included in a letter to acting FDA

Commissioner, Dr von Eschenbach, from Senator Charles Grassley (R-

Iowa)

on February 24, 2006. Senator Grassley has been keeping a close eye

on

the performance of the FDA in recent

years.

Evelyn Pringle

 

As a Senator representing the State of Iowa and Chairman of the

Committee on Finance, which has jurisdiction over the Medicare and

Medicaid programs, the Senator wrote, " I am responsible for

oversight of

matters that affect my constituents and the beneficiaries of these

federal health care programs. "

 

In the letter, he advised Dr von Eschenbach that he found a recent

Wall

Street Journal article titled, " Amid Alarm Bells, A Blood Substitute

Keeps Pumping, " alarming.

 

According to Sen Grassley, the WSJ says the FDA is allowing

Illinois-based Northfield Laboratories to test a blood substitute

called

PolyHeme, in a clinical trial without the consent of patients, who

may

be unconscious or otherwise incapable of providing informed consent,

pursuant to a rarely used FDA regulation, which allows for waiver of

the

consent required in clinical trials, if some type of community

outreach

program is put into practice.

 

" I understand the value of a viable blood substitute, " Senator

Grassley

told Dr von Eschenbach in the letter, " but I'm really disturbed by

what

I'm hearing about the FDA's role here and I want to find out what's

going on. "

 

PolyHeme contains hemoglobin processed from expired blood donations

and

is designed to be given to trauma victims in place of blood or saline

solution. The product is supposed to be used as a temporary measure

when

there is a large blood loss and no readily available blood supply,

according to Northfield.

 

Under guidelines for emergency teams participating in the study, at

trauma sites, they administer PolyHeme to half of the patients, and

standard saline solution to the other half. At the emergency room,

patients who get PolyHeme at the trauma site continue to receive

PolyHeme.

 

The 1996 federal regulation in question allows trials of possible

life-saving treatments without patient consent if participating

facilities inform members of the community about the trial and gauge

public sentiment.

 

" I am skeptical, " Sen Grassley told the FDA, " that any participating

medical centers managed to conduct effective, practical outreach to

the

community and to provide a meaningful, informative warning to the

public

about the PolyHeme Study. "

 

" If you're in a car accident, of course you want emergency doctors to

save your life, " Sen Grassley said in a press release. " But no

reasonable person would expect to be treated as an experimental

subject

without consent, " he added.

 

The trial is currently being conducted in 18 states that include

California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas,

Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,

Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia

 

So if you travel in these states and suffer a traumatic injury or

need

emergency treatment at a participating trauma center, you could

become

an unknowing research subject without your consent.

 

That is, unless you happen to be wearing a lightblue wristband

imprinted

with the statement: " I decline the Northfield PolyHeme Study. "

 

This silly provision has further angered the Senator. " The idea that

the

FDA would put the burden on the public to opt out of this mass

experiment is outrageous, " he said.

 

An unknown number of community meetings were reportedly held in

participating states and anyone who took time to attend a meeting

could

opt out by wearing continuously for an undetermined period of time

one

of these light-blue wristbands.

 

" Why should Americans have to wear a bracelet at all times to protect

themselves from a government-sanctioned medical experiment if they

happen to get into a car accident? " he asked the FDA.

 

" I suspect many people, if they knew this, " Senator Grassley noted,

" might reasonably ask, " where do I get my wristband? "

 

This question is not readily answerable according to the

Senator, " it's

not apparent from any information on the FDA's website, " he said.

 

Researchers at Legacy Health System and Oregon Health & Science

University in Portland, Oregon suspended their plans to test the

blood

substitute after attempts to get local approval for the experiment

were

unsuccessful for 2 years.

 

The WSJ reported that, in an earlier clinical trial of PolyHeme, 10

out

of 81 patients suffered heart attacks within a week of receiving the

substitute and that 2 of those people died.

 

Besides the heart attacks and deaths, the trial suggested the

PolyHeme

was linked with other adverse events such as heart rhythm aberrations

and pneumonia. These events occurred in 54% of the PolyHeme patients

versus 28% in the control group, according to Northfield's internal

documents.

 

The previous study differs from the current study in that patients in

the first study were not trauma patients, they were undergoing

surgery

to repair aneurysms in their aortas and consented to participating in

the study. In the first study, patients in one group received

PolyHeme

and patients in the control group received real blood.

 

In the second half of 2001, " Northfield abruptly shut down the study,

explaining in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it was

taking too long to complete, " the WSJ reports. The paper says

Northfield

failed to make the results of the study public.

 

Northfield's chief executive, Steven Gould, says it has not been

proven

that the adverse events in the trial were caused by PolyHeme and

claims

the heart attacks may have been caused by doctors who pumped too much

fluid into patients, when adding PolyHeme and real blood.

 

William Hoffman, chief of the cardiac-surgery intensive-care unit at

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told the WSJ that

substitutes

in a class that includes PolyHeme, are associated with heart attacks

and

strokes. " It is self-serving and potentially misleading to associate

harmful effects with something other than the test drug, " he said.

 

Doctors who took part in the first study have questions but said

Northfield restricted access to the full data so they only knew what

happened to their own patients.

 

At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Fairman told the WSJ that he

and

a colleague, Albert Cheung, repeatedly called Dr Gould at Northfield.

" We said, 'Let's sit down and write up the data,' " Dr. Fairman

recalls.

" He wouldn't do it. "

 

Dr. Cheung proposed a meeting of doctors at the 21 hospitals that had

taken part in the study and says Dr Gould agreed to the meeting, but

then canceled it at the last minute.

 

T.J. Gan, a Duke University anesthesiologist involved in the study,

told

the WSJ he called Northfield three years ago to ask if results had

been

published and Dr. Gould told him, " Someone's working on it. "

 

Northfield issued a statement saying company officials do not recall

the

specifics of any discussion about a meeting with Dr Cheung or the

conversation with Dr Gan. It denies that it " resisted publication "

but

says: " We did not allocate resources to publication. In retrospect,

reporting the full study results earlier would have been better. "

 

" Last year, " according to the WSJ, " the FDA required Northfield to

mention on its Web site " serious cardiovascular adverse experiences "

with PolyHeme. "

 

" Five of the 31 hospitals in the trauma study followed suit, but well

after many trauma patients had been treated, " the paper noted.

 

In his letter, Senator Grassley told the FDA to address the issue " by

providing the public with meaningful information related to what it

should already have known about the PolyHeme Study. "

 

In addition, by March 8, 2006, he instructed the agency to provide

his

Committee with a detailed briefing regarding the study.

 

" Over the next few days, " Senator Grassley wrote, " my Committee staff

will contact your staff with more specific requests for information,

but

at the minimum your staff should be prepared to address the following

issues related to the PolyHeme Study:

 

1. What oversight, if any, has FDA conducted related to the PolyHeme

Study?

 

2. What consultation with representatives of the community was

conducted?

 

3. What public disclosure to communities was conducted prior to

initiation of the PolyHeme Study?

 

4. Were known adverse events, including but not limited to those

reported in the WSJ, disclosed with the risks and expected benefits

information?

 

5. Has Northfield Laboratories, Inc., met all regulatory reporting

requirements related to its PolyHeme product, including but not

limited

to timely reporting of all adverse events? "

 

He also asked the FDA to provide a detailed list and summary of all

clinical trials conducted since January 1, 1996, under the FDA

regulation governing exception from informed consent requirements.

 

In regard to the current study, Northfield says an independent

committee

monitoring the study reviewed reports of death and other serious

problems four times, and each time recommended the trial continue

unchanged, according to Reuters News on February 24, 2006.

 

 

By Evelyn Pringle

evelyn.pringle

 

 

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