Drug guinea pig gets cancer
Taken from the Sun newspaper
Volunteers in a drug trial were recalled for tests last night — after one of the human guinea pigs got CANCER.
The man and 54 others were given a new anti-allergy medicine through a drip. But the victim was diagnosed with a cancerous swelling — called follicular lymphoma — weeks later.
Yesterday the organisers of trial 1471-30 in Leeds frantically phoned all of the volunteers to break the news. A letter was also sent asking each of them to return to the clinic for blood and heart tests.
The incident has chilling echoes of last year’s "Elephant Man" disaster. The trial, at the Parexel centre in London’s Northwick Park Hospital, left six men fighting for life.
An anti-arthritis drug sent their immune systems into overdrive, causing their bodies to swell to three times their normal size. This year it emerged that one victim — David Oakley, 35 — showed early signs of lymphoma cancer. The latest drug trial was held at the Covance Clinic in Leeds.
Each man was paid £1,000 to receive one dose of the new drug. They were monitored at the clinic for five days.
Yesterday Covance confirmed a man — who has not been named — had developed follicular lymphoma 57 days after the trial.
Volunteer student Andy Woolfoot, 23, from Cirencester, Gloucs, said last night: "I got a call saying I have to come back for more testing because some poor lad has lymphoma."
"This is terrifying."
A spokesman for Covance insisted there was no link between the man’s illness and the medication in the trial.
Dr Chris Springall said: “We believe there is no connection between the cancer and the trial but we have to give the participants peace of mind. "Each person is being recalled for a medical examination, this is the first time we have experienced anything of this nature."