Fun with drug testing!

[theweaselking]

Early last week David O’Donnell, a 19-year-old student, arrived at the Parexel clinic attached to Northwick Park hospital, north London, to be screened for trials of a drug known as TGN1412. A first trial was just starting and his friend was taking part. O’Donnell was due to prepare for the next round.

To his surprise, researchers said the study had been cancelled and asked him to join another project. They did not reveal that down the corridor, six volunteers in the first trial were, as one witness said, “exploding”.

Comments

[torrain.livejournal.com]

For the sake of clarity, that's early in March.

I was reading through it and thinking it sounded horribly familiar, and I couldn't quite believe it was happening again, when I checked the dateline.

Reaction remains much the same: Jesus fsck.

(And faint thoughts of /FireStarter/, god help me.)

[larabeaton.livejournal.com]

The first clue should have been the fact that the pharmaceutical company was willing to shell out 2000 UKP to their human test subjects.

[harald387.livejournal.com]

You know.

If I were a tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorist, I'd hazard a guess that this drug operated exactly as intended.

I'd posit that this was, rather than a commercial experiment, a military one.

Think of it - full-body incapacitation, fatal blood pressure drop, intense nausea... in *minutes*? This will kill you if you don't have an intensive care ward handy.

I really don't want to think about the implications of this as a weapon.

But I already did, and now I can't stop.

-K

[gothpanda.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

[torrain.livejournal.com]

> I'd posit that this was, rather than a commercial
> experiment, a military one.

If it wasn't before...

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Except there are much more effective poisons out there already.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

Well, it would kind of be a bio-terror weapon, but if you want to cause a massive immune/shock reaction, there are cheaper and easier ways of doing that. I think they're right about having messed with the wrong part of the immune system in the wrong way. I really hope they are investigating this properly and they make the results public because this is a major area of research.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

As if how quickly something kills is the only consideration... Consider the demoralizing effect, and the drain on resources.

Besides, what would you consider a more effective poison? This thing starts a bad reaction in minutes, renders you incapable of effective action, kills you if you don't get prompt hospitalization and plasma transfusion, and keeps you out of action for some unspecified period of time (at least two weeks to get out of the hospital).

I grant you there are poisons that kill more quickly out there, but I'm not sure if that makes them more effective, since in either case you're dead. ATM this one kind of lacks antidotes, which is doubtless a point to be considered. And I'm not sure what else you'd want to make a *weapon* more effective.

Thank goodness all responsible souls are adhering to the Geneva conventions and--

--oh. Fsck.