Blood substitute to be tested on emergency room bleeders
RAW STORY
Published:
Friday July 7, 2006
Print This | Email This
Victims of major accidents who bleed heavily may find themselves unwittingly taking part in an experiment with a new artificial blood product, RAW STORY has learned.
A post at ABC News's The Blotter warned that major trauma victims brought into emergency rooms in 27 cities across the United States could have the product PolyHeme tested on them without their informed consent. A National Institutes for Health website has listed the test sites here, ranging from hospitals in Denver, Colorado to Macon, Georgia.
The only way to not become a test subject, The Blotter noted, is if the victim arrives in the hospital wearing a blue bracelet provided by the company, Northfield Laboratories, which could not be confirmed at the company's website.
The trial in the 27 cities required a special exemption from informed consent regulations passed by the federal government in the Code of Federal Regulations. A website for one of the test locations described risks as including "Rash; Temporary; non-life-threatening increase in blood pressure; Transmission of hepatitis and HIV viruses; Kidney or liver damage with some resulting loss of kidney or liver function has occurred in patients who received other free hemoglobin products, but so far has not been found in patients who received PolyHeme, however there is a potential risk that this may occur with PolyHeme also; Unforeseen happenings."
The government's sponsorship of the study was promoted by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the state in which Northfield is based. In a January press release, the Senator argued that he hoped the $3.5 million allocated for the study would help "Critically injured patients, such as soldiers grievously wounded on the battlefield... if the blood substitute, known as PolyHeme, can be used as an alternative to human blood."
|
