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| quote: | n the disastrous drug trials which left six people fighting for their lives, Raste Khan couldn't believe his luck when he was given a harmless placebo.
And yesterday the human guinea pig said he was refusing an instruction from the drug company to return to the same hospital for more tests or forfeit his £2,000 fee.
"There is no way I am going inside that place again," he said.
"They will have to come to me. I saw the most terrible things in there and it's still haunting me."
The 23-year-old student from Barry, near Cardiff, said he received an answerphone message threatening non-payment if he did not return to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, North West London, where clinical trials left six people in intensive care - one of whom remains critically ill.
Mr Khan was given a placebo drug by chance.
But he watched in horror as the other volunteers who had been injected with TGN 1412 - a drug intended to combat arthritis, leukaemia and multiple sclerosis - screamed and writhed in agony as it caused horrendous reactions.
The worst affected, Mohamed 'Nino' Abdelhady - the so-called Elephant Man because of the terrible swelling to his head - told the Mail how he is plagued by nightmares. Still recovering in hospital, he recalled: "I started to feel ill almost as soon as they had finished injecting me.
"I felt as if I had rocks on my head and I must have started hallucinating. "Help me," I screamed, "I'm dying".'
Last night, solicitors representing the four who became most seriously ill said the drug manufacturers TeGenero had agreed to compensate the victims.
But the company has yet to meet solicitors to discuss possible settlements or explain the likely long-term damage caused by the drug. All the men signed a consent form. But the catastrophic results of last month's trials could lead to claims running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Although uninjured, Mr Khan is also seeking compensation as he has yet to receive an apology from Parexel, the American firm that tested TGN 1412 on behalf of TeGenero.
He said: "As the trauma unfolded I was not even told by any of the doctors or nurses that I would be all right because I had been given a placebo.
"I was expecting any minute to collapse like the rest of them.
"Then, when I was sent home a few hours later, I was still in the dark as to whether I was going to be all right.
"All I have got was this answerphone message about a week after the trial.
"She said that if I did not attend the hospital for more tests I would forfeit the agreed £2,000 fee. There would be no payment at all."
Mr Khan, who is training to be a primary school teacher, is now unable to sleep at night.
"It went from total calm to a living hell," he added.
"We were given the drug through drips at ten-minute intervals. The South African was reading a novel and suddenly he stopped reading and started rolling around his bed clutching his head.
"Then Nav started to pant and his chest was pounding. They gave him an oxygen mask but he kept ripping it off.
"He was screaming "my head, my head" and was wriggling about like a worm.
"He started vomiting into a black bin liner and then he passed out. He was in and out of consciousness and his breathing stopped.2 |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...in_page_id=1770
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| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
You're impressively stupid, that's for sure. I'd give you advice, but I cannot in good conscience take any action which could potentially increase the odds that you'll reproduce. I'm sorry. |
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