US using drug on our troops in Iraq in "completely irresponsible way"

[Bluebear]

BALTIMORE - A blood-coagulating drug designed to treat rare forms of hemophilia is being used on critically wounded U.S. troops in Iraq despite evidence it can cause clots that lead to strokes, heart attacks and death in other patients, The (Baltimore) Sun reported for Sunday's edition.

Recombinant Activated Factor VII, which is made by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, is approved in the United States for treating forms of hemophilia that affect fewer than 3,000 Americans. It costs $6,000 a dose.

The Food and Drug Administration said in a warning last December that giving Factor VII to patients who don't have the blood disorder could cause strokes and heart attacks. Its researchers published a study in January blaming 43 deaths on clots that developed after injections of Factor VII. However, the Army medical command considers it a medical breakthrough that gives front-line physicians a way to control deadly bleeding. Physicians in Iraq have injected it into more than 1,000 patients, reported The Sun, which makes its first Sunday edition available Saturday afternoon.

"When it works, it's amazing," said Col. John B. Holcomb, an Army trauma surgeon and commander of the Army's Institute of Surgical Research. "It's one of the most useful new tools we have." Critics strongly disagree. "It's a completely irresponsible and inappropriate use of a very, very dangerous drug," said Dr. Jawed Fareed, director of the hemostasis and thrombosis research program at Loyola University in Chicago and a specialist in blood-clotting and blood-thinning medications.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061118/ap_on_he_me/hemophilia_drug_troops

[Kagemusha]

1. Is this the same one there was an uproar over re: the UK's army?

Very similar story. Medics were instructed to use it only as a last resort... ...but who knows what really happens. After all, tasers are used in much broader ways than the manufacturer advised in the manual.

Just saying, though, if you're faced with a genuine case of risking long-term damage and a patient virtually certain to outright die without it, I'd be more than willing to forgive desperate measures in desperate times.

[NMDemDist2]

2. Good God!

:banghead:

[Donnachaidh]

3. that's flat out DANGEROUS!

This stuff should NOT be used on people that do not have the disorder! And btw -- the army is getting goosed on the cost per dose as well. Six GRAND a dose? A hemophiliac friend in the US pays one thousand a dose.

Unbelievably irresponsible!

[malaise]

4. Stop this fugging war

andd stop killing the youth. Good fugging grief. It's time to lock up these goons.

[leftchick]

5. anything to keep the combat death toll down

:grr:

Will they be counted after a blood clot months later?

[Bluebear]

6. I think you're right.

"Cause of death: stroke, not combat related"

[Bluebear]

7. for the Monday a.m. crowd