Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5743
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Leppard D.
Elephant Man drug victims told to expect early death
Times Online 2006 Jul 30
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2291774,00.html
Full text:
The Sunday Times July 30, 2006
Elephant Man drug victims told to expect early death
David Leppard
VICTIMS of the disastrous “Elephant Man” drugs trial have been told they face contracting cancer and other fatal diseases as a result of being poisoned in the bungled tests.
One of the six victims was told last week he is already showing “definite early signs” of lymphatic cancer.
He and three others have also been warned that they are “highly likely” to develop incurable auto-immune diseases.
The men were paid £2,000 each to volunteer as human “guinea pigs” in the trial at Northwick Park hospital, northwest London, last March. They suffered heart, liver and kidney failure and were left seriously ill after being given TGN1412. The drug was made by TeGenero, a German firm.
The men had been told by doctors they would not suffer any life-threatening illnesses.
Nav Modi, 24, whose bloated face and swollen chest led to the nickname “Elephant Man”, said he did not know how long he would live.
“It’s a really bizarre feeling when you discover you might be dead in a couple of years or even in a couple of months,” he said. “I feel like I’ve given away my life for £2,000.”
Modi’s lawyer, Martyn Day, of Leigh Day solicitors, said the four victims he was representing were considering legal action against Parexel, the firm that ran the trial. He believes they are eligible for up to £5m in damages. The company denies responsibility for the outcome of the trial.
The Sunday Times has seen the medical assessment of four of the victims, completed last week by immunologist Professor Richard Powell.
According to Powell, one man, known simply as Patient A, “has definite early signs that a lymphoid malignancy is developing”.
