Report: Army used experimental procedures

WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- U.S. military doctors have used battlefield medical procedures that had not gone through rigorous review, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The Baltimore Sun reported the Army has altered or abandoned some experimental medical treatments for troops injured in combat that the branch once said were groundbreaking.

The newspaper reported the experimental procedures included battle dressings, a blood-clotting drug and alternative procedures for emergency blood transfusions.

Few of the procedures are used by civilian hospitals, the Sun reported.

The newspaper said in some instances, wounded troops were among the first humans on whom the treatments were used.

Army studies indicating the treatments were either ineffective or potentially dangerous have not been published in medical journals.

"I worry that some soldiers were hurt by the overzealous use of unproven therapies," said Dr. Ian Black, head of anesthesia at the Army's main combat hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2006 and 2007. "I look back and I wonder, did I hurt someone?"

The Army's surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, denied soldiers were guinea pigs.

"We're not doing experimentation in theater. It's unethical," Schoomaker told the newspaper.