Activist group seeks investigation of NIH deaths

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Source: Wash. Post

The activist group Public Citizen asked the secretaries of defense and health and human services on Tuesday to investigate the deaths of two people who received platelet transfusions contaminated with bacteria at the National Institutes of Health’s research hospital this summer.

The transfusions caused infection, shock and multiple-organ failure in cancer patients with compromised immune systems. One died a month later, the other six weeks later, according to a letter sent by Sidney M. Wolfe, the physician who heads Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

“My conclusion . . . is that the deaths from overwhelming sepsis . . . were entirely preventable had proper blood bank procedures been followed,” he wrote.

NIH officials acknowledged the deaths publicly after Wolfe delivered the letter and made copies available to the news media. NIH spokesman John Burklow said the institution “is deeply saddened by the deaths of two patients who were participants in clinical research” there.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/activist-group-seeks-investigation-of-nih-deaths/2011/10/24/gIQAgF2GHM_story.html