WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Three medical ethicists say that a U.S. company's testing of a blood substitute on non-consenting patients does not "meet regulatory and ethical standards."
Northfield Laboratories Inc. is running trials at 31 U.S. hospitals, the Wall Street Journal reported. In at least some cases, the blood substitute has been given to trauma patients.
The open letter to the review boards of the hospitals is to be published in The American Journal of Bioethics. Its was written by Dr. Robert M. Nelson, a specialist in critical care and anesthesia at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Nancy King, a professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina medical school, and Ken Kipnis, who teaches medical ethics professor at the University of Hawaii.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has also begun an investigation into Northfield and the trials of the blood substitute, known as PolyHeme. The trials were approved by the FDA.
