Drug trial disaster

The Australian: Survivor guilt for beating drug bullet [March 18, 2006]

For a few days now, the media has been reporting a drug trial that went wrong in England. Initially I assumed that the people who have nearly died (it seems at least one will die eventually) had some delayed reaction. However, in the Australian today (see above) the full details of how it went wrong are set out, and it was a case of immediate illness and disaster as soon as the drug was given. Has a drug trial ever gone as badly wrong as this?

Perhaps the amount given was a human error and that explains it. As the above story notes:

John Henry, a clinical toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital, London, told reporters: "The dose they were using is the whole key here. What was their target dose and what did they start with?

"They should have started with a minuscule dose and given it to the first two volunteers to see if there was any reaction. Then they should have moved on to the next two volunteers and multiplied the dose. You can't, in all conscience, give six people the same dose and hope they will all react perfectly.

"It is just common sense."