Supplement: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2166058&page=1
My favorite part:
Here's a more coherent set of excerpts.Dr. Alasdair Conn, the chief of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, says his hospital refused to be part of the Polyheme experiment.
Dr. Alasdair Conn: (#8/02:06:10) We have an excellent blood bank, and we thought, why tie the trauma surgeon's hands into using this particular product when, if you like, we have the gold standard? We have blood.
Dr. Ernest Moore: I would submit they do not understand the scientific evidence available.
Brian Ross: The doctors up in Boston?
Dr. Ernest Moore: Exactly.
Brian Ross: (05:22:14) You know better?
Dr. Ernest Moore: Exactly.
For the last two years, badly bleeding accident victims have been used in a possibly risky medical experiment without their knowledge — they have no say about what will be done to them.
Brian Ross: Even if they're conscious in the ambulance, they don't have a choice?
Dr. Ernest Moore: The, well, that's correct, yes.
The only way out of it is to be wearing a blue wristband like this one, provided by the company doing the test — wearing it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
...
Sen. Charles Grassley: A violation of everything that we would call ethical.
...
In the experiment, ambulance squads give Polyheme to half of the severely bleeding patients they pick up, instead of the normally used saltwater solution. Who gets what is determined at random by a sealed envelope.
Ambulance worker: It's all in here, sir. It's like on a game show, I guess.
A game show in which the contestants, the subjects, are never told a key piece of information. Confidential Northfield Labs documents obtained by 20/20 show that a previous Polyheme experiment had to be stopped because of safety issues - 10 of the patients received heart attack and two died.
Brian Ross: (#18/05:08:52) Would you call that a safety problem?
Dr. Ernest Moore: No.//Potential safety problem.
...
Dr. Moore says that anyone concerned about safety has a built-in protection — that blue bracelet from Northfield Labs — a way for residents to supposedly opt out of being included in the Polyheme experiment.
Brian Ross: (06:01:09) And you think most people in Denver know they have to wear this 24/7 if they don't want to be part of your study?
Dr. Ernest Moore: I believe the majority do, yes.
Brian Ross: (#14/01:05:40) Have you ever heard that you have to wear one of these?
Woman: No, I haven't.
Despite the supposedly widely advertised experiment, we couldn't find a single person in downtown Denver who had heard of the blue wristband, or the prospect they could become part of the experiment.
...
But unless a relative demands it, the rules of the experiment require that accident victims be kept on Polyheme for 12 hours straight - meaning they would not get real blood even when they arrived at the hospital.
To the outrage of many leading doctors who say Polyheme is no substitute for real blood.
Dr. Alasdair Conn: (#8/02:08:00) Call us skeptical. We were concerned that this substance may have side effects.
Dr. Alasdair Conn, the chief of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, says his hospital refused to be part of the Polyheme experiment.
Dr. Alasdair Conn: (#8/02:06:10) We have an excellent blood bank, and we thought, why tie the trauma surgeon's hands into using this particular product when, if you like, we have the gold standard? We have blood.
Dr. Ernest Moore: I would submit they do not understand the scientific evidence available.
Brian Ross: The doctors up in Boston?
Dr. Ernest Moore: Exactly.
Brian Ross: (05:22:14) You know better?
Dr. Ernest Moore: Exactly.