Military wants to secretly test product on civilians

Blood substitute may be used in Iraq war

By ANDREW BRIDGES
The Associated Press
December 17. 2006 10:00AM

A blood substitute made by a Massachusetts company that the military wants to test on civilian trauma victims is urgently needed to save lives on the battlefield in places like Iraq, a Navy official told federal advisers last week.

The Navy wants to test the product, derived from cow blood, on about 1,100 trauma victims in emergency situations. It proposes doing so without obtaining the customary informed consent of patients in advance.

The substitute blood, called Hemopure, would be given on the way to the hospital to patients ages 18 to 69 who have lost dangerous amounts of blood. It would substitute for the saline fluids typically given in ambulances when donated blood is unavailable for transfusion.

In Iraq, 68 percent of the U.S. troops who die of trauma before reaching a hospital suffer severe bleeding as part of their injuries, the Navy's deputy surgeon general, Rear Adm. John Mateczun, told a panel of federal health advisers. An available blood substitute could save many of those lives, he added.

"We urgently need an oxygen-carrying capability that does not require refrigeration, is universally compatible and can be readily administered in a field setting," Mateczun said in remarks to a Food and Drug Administration panel, which convened to consider whether the agency should lift a hold on the experiment. The FDA isn't required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees but usually does.

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