Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.

Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought was a conventional flu vaccine but, according to investigators, was actually an anti bird-flu drug.

The director of a Grudziadz homeless centre, Mieczyslaw Waclawski, told a Polish newspaper that last year, 21 people from his centre died, a figure well above the average of about eight.

[edit on 7/3/2008 by Ceara]

It always irritates me when I see an ad soliciting people for a drug study!
The only people that are going to take it are poor people without legal avenues of protection, usually!
Don't do it!

I guess PETA got to them. They would be so proud!

That is why animal testing is so important. Better that animals die, than humans.

reply to post by RRconservative


Agreed - but they still do need to test on Humans, and we should feel lucky that some pioneers actually self tested.

Saying that I applied for a clinical trial years back - got a free medical and the works... They turned me down because at that time I was very skinny (not no more ) and they also detected something I may of smoked At the time I was disappointed cos the cash was gonna upgrade me to a better motorbike - looking back I'm rather happy, doubt I'd volunteer again unless the trial actually benifited me some how, Ie If I had some sort of cancer or if they wanted to fix my poor eyesight or something. They could still give me bionic artificial corneas if they like!

Emphasis mine here,

Originally posted by RRconservative
I guess PETA got to them. They would be so proud!That is why animal testing is so important. Better that animals die, than humans.

They probably DID do some testing on animals, and the test results showed it was safe. Maybe an argument NOT to test on animals huh?

Testing on violent felons would be fine with me. They can earn cigarettes or something for their efforts.

reply to post by Sonya610


Testing on Southerners or Ghetto thugs and rap artists is more preferable.

Those ads for medical testing are really scary and always conjure up Victorian era medicine such as lobotomies and water tanks. Some ads state that the participant must be hospitalized or otherwise under constant supervision for an extended period of time.

However, let us not forget that every time we hear that a new pharmaceutical has "caused death in rare cases" means that people have actually died in the testing of this drug yet it has still been passed and deemed "safe".

[edit on 4-7-2008 by Shadowflux]

I always laugh when some drug commercials come on...especially when they say "In some cases the benefits outweigh the risks; talk to your doctor about it!"

In some cases? Wtf? They do a lot of testing in the third world. I did read that there was a movement to require they continue providing the drugs of the test subjects show improvement, and they should. To try drugs on people that are dirt poor, and could never buy those drugs, and then stop providing them when the trial is over and let the people die when they were better, well that is just awful. The pharma companies make a lot of money when a drug proves effective, they can certainly afford to send some to the clinical trial subjects.

But drug companies are a business, they will get away with whatever they can. A famous pain killer, Remidyl, was marketed heavily to pet owners as a miracle cure for arthritis pain in dogs. Then some dogs started dying of liver failure. Turns out they developed it for human use, until they realized it was causing liver failure in some humans so they lost FDA approval for human use. They brought it back as a miracle drug for dogs without mentioning the liver failure issue. It is still used but with a lot more caution.

I am now very suspicious of all new "miracle drugs", if there is an old school drug that can help it is always my first choice. People need to do their own research if they can.


[edit on 4-7-2008 by Sonya610]