Dangerous Experimental Drug Used on US Troops in Iraq

News Daily

U.S. doctors in Iraq have used an experimental blood-coagulating drug on 1,000 wounded soldiers, despite the potential for deadly side effects, a report says.

The drug, Recombinant Activated Factor VII, has been linked to deadly blood clots in the lungs, hearts and brains of patients, the Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.

Factor VII has been approved for use within the United States only for rare forms of hemophilia, which affects about 2,700 people in the United States, but the Army Medical Command has encouraged liberal use of the drug in wounded troops with severe bleeding, the Sun said. The report said the drug is routinely used by doctors who only suspect bleeding might occur.

"It's a completely irresponsible and inappropriate use of a very, very dangerous drug," said Jawed Fareed, a specialist in blood-clotting and blood-thinning medications and director of the hemostasis and thrombosis research program at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill.

Perfect Example of how the ARMY takes "Care" of its Soldiers.

Not to mention that wrongly prescribed medications cause more deaths then all the drugs combined.

Now lets combine todays Medicine and Military and this is the story we get.

This has been discussed, already.

Lex

Lex - Maybe next time you could post a link?


Souljah - It's horrific.

...But what I find really interesting in the larger scheme of things is this:

Supposedly, capitalism drives the "very expensive" search for cures and treatments - but we have all kinds of stuff for really rare diseases like hemophilia "which affects about 2,700 people in the United States" - but nothing for common epidemics?

Go figga.


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Been discussed here on ATS. I participated. No idea how to post links, sorry.
Maybe try using Search ?

Lex

Did several searches - no other thread found.

This is a VERY important topic, IMO.

Hate to see it killed when an alternate thread isn't available.

umm, they claim that its dangerous and deadly, but notice that there are no statistics on how many soldiers might have been harmed with this drug, nor anything on how many were saved from bleeding to death with it. i think i'd like to see some numbers before we go condemning it...especially considering that i remember a recent article in which the front line surgical unit docs were congratulating the military on it's training of front line troops on how to stop bleeding, because that training had saved countless lives. i'm wondering if this drug was partly responsible for that.

Originally posted by snafu7700

i remember a recent article in which the front line surgical unit docs were congratulating the military on it's training of front line troops on how to stop bleeding, because that training had saved countless lives. i'm wondering if this drug was partly responsible for that.

It may be - but I also know that drug companies work hard to develop new markets for drugs created for rare diseases, just to expand the profit base. And not all applications are a good idea, or good for patients.

As you say - it needs more info. And not just the defense of "battlefield expediency."



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This is something quite similar to what happened during the first Gulf War (when Daddy Bush was in charge). Due to the suspicion that chemical weapons were going to be used, our soldiers were equipped with a drug to compensate exposure to such; But it seems that this "treatment" was quite dangerous if applied before the subject was exposed to chemical weapons.

Yet, the field commanders would order the soldiers to take the drug with only the mere suspicion that chemical weapons might be used in the particular battle (even though often, they weren't). To top things off, the medical records for those soldiers weren't updated or appended to mention that they'd been taking the drug.

Within less than a year after that war ended & the soldiers came home, they started having severe medical & health problems due to their "treatment drug" being taken prematurely...But the government held that it was not responsible for providing health care from the drug-related problem because there was nothing in the medical records that would make the government accountable.

Due to government corruption & collusion with corporate greed, I suggest that we pray for our troops...Because that's possibly the only honest support they're going to get.


[edit on 22-11-2006 by MidnightDStroyer]

Well we all know that two most powerful corporations today are the Military and the Drug Industries - and they both kind of care very little for the People. The Military industry develops a New kind of ammunition, very good in penetration - Depleted Uranium - and they really do not care for the side effects that this material will have on the soldiers who use it and on the civilians who later suffer in the conflict areas.

And the same goes for Drug Industries, which just develop new kind of crappy chemical drugs, for which they do not really KNOW what they will do to human body and the chemical balance in them. So they do the only thing they know - EXPERIMENT. On Humans of course. They have injected it into all kinds of small mammals in their cages already, but it is time for the final test.

I would love to see all of the pro-army, pro-military, pro-war crowds to come in here and share with us their view over this topic, since their only answer is that the Army is there to "Protect" us. OK, I know that the majority of the soldiers are probably very good people, honest, good working, good hearted - but is the INSTITUTION of Armed forces the same? I think not...

Originally posted by Souljah
...I would love to see all of the pro-army, pro-military, pro-war crowds to come in here and share with us their view over this topic, since their only answer is that the Army is there to "Protect" us. OK, I know that the majority of the soldiers are probably very good people, honest, good working, good hearted - but is the INSTITUTION of Armed forces the same? I think not...

No is not is the answer. The service men and women are simple pawns , little flags, in the hands of that institution, that like all governments and armies are very quick in discarding their responsabilities when something goes wrong. Unfortunatelly these 'wars' prove to be a really good test field for this kind of drugs, and in fact for many other things, why to test in mice when they can use live, living human beings. It's a sick reasoning but it's the one they use.

I actually know abit about Novo Nordisk's Novo 7, also known as rFVIIa, as I have a family member that has been working on it for the last 5 years. This is being used right now in Trauma Hospitals around the U.S. with a very good outcome. I really do think this is an amazing drug that has many positive uses. I know in Newark NJ it is being used for Gun Shot victims and stabbing victims with great success right now. As well as in Miami, NYC and San Francisco. All drugs hold a risk and this reporter did not mention any numbers. The most common side effects are fever 4%, bleeding 3%, decrease in the amount of coagulation factor1 2%, pain from blood collecting in a joint 3% and high blood pressure 2%. Now I know if I was shot and dying from massive loss of blood, I'd risk the 4% chance that I am going to get a fever. (The most common side effect) The chance of thrombosis happening from what I understand is next to nil or .05%. Why do you guys consider what they are doing testing on the soldiers? This drug has been around for many many years. I believe the drug was first created in 1990. That’s 16 years ago. I don't see it as testing. I see it as using something that is proven to work in a very grim situation. Just my thoughts. By the way, to see what Jawed Fareedn said about this drug please read this article
abcnews.go.com...
He said that what the Boston Sun put down was taken WAY out of context.

for denying ignorance and bias with facts:

You have voted NJStomp for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have used all of your votes for this month.

During the first gulf war we were given two experimental vaccines...Anthrax and Botulinum toxoid without consent.

Those of us who received these vaccines have our shot records and medical records undocumented, or like me, missing altogether.

And a lot of us are having medical problems that can't be accounted for, such as like me, osteoporosis, and other more serious problems. I'm not the only one...

...However, Lt. Col. Graham Howe, clinical director of psychiatry with the British Forces Health Service in Germany, was asked by the War Pensions Agency to examine the case of former Lance Cpl. Alex Izett, who, since the war, has been suffering from osteoporosis and acute depression.

Howe wrote in his report the "secret" injections Izett received prior to his expected deployment to the Gulf "most probably led to the development of autoimmune-induced osteoporosis."

The medical report noted there was a "high incidence" of osteoporosis in Gulf War veterans...

Source

A disease that usually only affects post-menopausal women...LOL It's not funny but if you don't laugh... anyway we shouldn't have this disease, especially when your calcium and vit D levels are normal.