April 01, 2006

Parexel Subjects Blast Everyone in Sight

It is getting very nasty in Britain after the tragic outcome in the Parexel trial (misnamed, really; Parexel is the clinical research organization, the compound (TGN1412) is manufactured and was developed by TeGenero, a german company). A 24 year old who ended up looking like the 'Elephant Man' (says the Times London) after enrolling in a trial to earn $3,000 for a computer is still furious that there were adverse effects:
As the mask was put on my face I felt that I couldn’t breathe and begged the doctors, ‘Please, please let me out of here. I don’t want the money any more. I just want to be free’.”

Mr Modi, who was released from intensive care five days after the trial on March 14, said that scientists had assured the volunteers that the drug had been tested on two monkeys without ill-effects and that they would be given only 1/500th of the dose given to the animals.

The student, who had taken part in two previous Parexel trials at Northwick Park Hospital, said: “We were assured we would be safe. I trusted Parexel with my life. But now I know I would be dead if I had been left in their care and the doctors and nurses had not been on hand to save me. They treated us no better than the animals in cages in their laboratories.” In total eight volunteers took part in the tests. Two were given placebos and of the other six only one, Ryan Wilson, 21, remains in intensive care.

After the extreme reaction nurses had sedated the six volunteers who had taken TGN1412. Mr Modi said that when he awoke he again started to complain about his discomfort to a nurse. “She said simply, ‘Mr Modi, do you realise that you are in a situation where you are very, very seriously ill? If you do not co-operate with us fully you may die’,” he said.

“I lay there terrified, cursing myself for putting myself in a situation where I was going to die for £2,000 I was never going to have a chance to spend.”

- thanks Art Caplan

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