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UK: 'Test ward turned into living hell'
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3606352a10,00.html
'Test ward turned into living hell'
17 March 2006 <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=5 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=5>
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A volunteer given a placebo in a drug trial watched in horror as six healthy young men, including a New Zealander, turned into wailing wrecks within minutes.
Human guinea pig Raste Khan, who did not know he had been given a harmless placebo in the test, said it was like a horror film unfolding before his eyes.
Khan, a 23-year-old television technician, told The Sun newspaper: "The test ward turned into a living hell minutes after we were injected. The men went down like dominoes.
"First they began tearing their shirts off, complaining of fever, then some screamed out that their heads felt like they were about to explode.
"After that, they started fainting, vomiting and writhing around in their beds.
"It was terrifying because I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn't know why.
"An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack. They put an oxygen mask on him, but he kept tearing it off, shouting, `Doctor, doctor, please help me'.
"He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back."
The girlfriend of one of the drug-trial volunteers left fighting for his life has told of her shock at seeing the fit 28-year-old grotesquely deformed and reduced to helplessness.
Myfanwy Marshall, a BBC television producer, told The Times that her partner had been so ravaged by the drug that he resembled the Elephant Man.
Doctors had told her that he would need a miracle to survive, she said.
He is one of two men in a critical condition after the trial at Northwick Park Hospital, in Harrow, north-west London. Four other men remain seriously ill.
One of the six is a New Zealander, whom the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has yet to name.
Lawyers have been instructed on behalf of at least one of the victims.
Marshall, 35, said she almost fainted when she first saw her boyfriend, a bartender, in intensive care.
"He is dark and gorgeous, 28, almost 29, a muscly, hunky guy, but here he looked like a 45-year-old man who has had a cardiac arrest," she said.
"His blood is being pumped in and out. His lungs, his heart and his kidneys are being supported. They have basically killed him within a day with a lethal injection."
He looked "like the Elephan Man, completely puffed", and his swollen head was a "weird purple and yellow colour".
"The doctors have said he could die at any moment. `His immune system is out of control; he needs a miracle'. Those were their words. It's like some nightmare movie," she said.
Marshall, originally from Australia, said her boyfriend of 18 months had impulsively volunteered for the trial to pay off some bills. He had previously volunteered for medical trials, with no ill effects.
Marian Flanagan, the mother of one of the other volunteers, said she feared for their lives.
"He's in really bad shape. They haven't got a cure. His whole system has broken down," she said.
Her son's tearful girlfriend, Michelle Bayford, said he had volunteered because he needed the money to pay for his studies.
It is understood the men were each paid 2000 ($NZ5400) to take part in the trial, plus 30 ($NZ80) a time for 11 follow-up checks.
Relatives of the volunteers met doctors and staff from the two companies involved ? German biotech company TeGenero and Parexel, the contract company that was conducting the trial.
In Britain, senior doctors have expressed concern that all six volunteers were given the same dose of experimental drug TGN1412 at the same time. The Textbook of Pharmaceutical Medicine warns that such a practice can "put subjects at unnecessary risk".
'Test ward turned into living hell'
17 March 2006 <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=5 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=5>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>A volunteer given a placebo in a drug trial watched in horror as six healthy young men, including a New Zealander, turned into wailing wrecks within minutes.
Human guinea pig Raste Khan, who did not know he had been given a harmless placebo in the test, said it was like a horror film unfolding before his eyes.
Khan, a 23-year-old television technician, told The Sun newspaper: "The test ward turned into a living hell minutes after we were injected. The men went down like dominoes.
"First they began tearing their shirts off, complaining of fever, then some screamed out that their heads felt like they were about to explode.
"After that, they started fainting, vomiting and writhing around in their beds.
"It was terrifying because I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn't know why.
"An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack. They put an oxygen mask on him, but he kept tearing it off, shouting, `Doctor, doctor, please help me'.
"He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back."
The girlfriend of one of the drug-trial volunteers left fighting for his life has told of her shock at seeing the fit 28-year-old grotesquely deformed and reduced to helplessness.
Myfanwy Marshall, a BBC television producer, told The Times that her partner had been so ravaged by the drug that he resembled the Elephant Man.
Doctors had told her that he would need a miracle to survive, she said.
He is one of two men in a critical condition after the trial at Northwick Park Hospital, in Harrow, north-west London. Four other men remain seriously ill.
One of the six is a New Zealander, whom the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has yet to name.
Lawyers have been instructed on behalf of at least one of the victims.
Marshall, 35, said she almost fainted when she first saw her boyfriend, a bartender, in intensive care.
"He is dark and gorgeous, 28, almost 29, a muscly, hunky guy, but here he looked like a 45-year-old man who has had a cardiac arrest," she said.
"His blood is being pumped in and out. His lungs, his heart and his kidneys are being supported. They have basically killed him within a day with a lethal injection."
He looked "like the Elephan Man, completely puffed", and his swollen head was a "weird purple and yellow colour".
"The doctors have said he could die at any moment. `His immune system is out of control; he needs a miracle'. Those were their words. It's like some nightmare movie," she said.
Marshall, originally from Australia, said her boyfriend of 18 months had impulsively volunteered for the trial to pay off some bills. He had previously volunteered for medical trials, with no ill effects.
Marian Flanagan, the mother of one of the other volunteers, said she feared for their lives.
"He's in really bad shape. They haven't got a cure. His whole system has broken down," she said.
Her son's tearful girlfriend, Michelle Bayford, said he had volunteered because he needed the money to pay for his studies.
It is understood the men were each paid 2000 ($NZ5400) to take part in the trial, plus 30 ($NZ80) a time for 11 follow-up checks.
Relatives of the volunteers met doctors and staff from the two companies involved ? German biotech company TeGenero and Parexel, the contract company that was conducting the trial.
In Britain, senior doctors have expressed concern that all six volunteers were given the same dose of experimental drug TGN1412 at the same time. The Textbook of Pharmaceutical Medicine warns that such a practice can "put subjects at unnecessary risk".
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