eople are to be treated equally.
A Prescription for Disaster
A call to doctors at the critical care unit at a hospital in northwest
London gave the first indication that an unprecedented medical crisis was unfolding.Six male volunteers on the seventh floor were showing extraordinary reactions to a new drug being tested at the hospital. Some were having breathing difficulties,while others had started to lose consciousness.The team that had administered the test drugs could not explain why some of the volunteers were falling in and out of comas or why others were suffering from organ dysfunction.0utside experts were called in but were also perplexed.
The volunteers had been contracted by a drug-testing company
to test the new anti-cancer drug TGN1412.But how could a carefully controlled medical trial have produced such massive reactions in so many volunteers?Why did the strict regulations normally followed during such drug tests fail to prevent this catastrophe?And what were the disaster's implications?Some worrying facts about the way the trial was conducted were quickly uncovered.Doses of TGN1412 were administered to the six volunteers with an interval of only minutes separating each injection.Norma11y,they would be administered hours apart to give researchers time to study volunteers for side effects.
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