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Archives | (March 2003)
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FEDERAL FRANKENSTEINS: PART ONE
ARE CLINICAL TRIALS BREEDING FEDERAL FRANKENSTEINS? (cont.)
------------------------------------------------------------------ Page 3 of 9 THE HUTCH, A PROFITABLE NON-PROFIT Called “The Hutch,” the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is among the largest recipients of federal research funds. Some $140 million a year of taxpayer dollars flow into The Hutch every year to underwrite hundreds of clinical trials. The Hutch employs some 2,300 people in its imposing brown brick buildings, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. According to one analysis, private companies valued at more than $18 billion have been formed by researchers exploiting the taxpayer-funded research they performed at The Hutch. Individual doctors have enriched themselves to the tune of $100 million through stock options, consulting and drug development deals. The Hutch is not unique in this regard. In fact, Johns Hopkins University won a $15.6 million settlement from a former Hutch researcher claiming his company had stolen a medical technology developed there. What went unsaid was how many taxpayer dollars Hopkins had received to develop that technology. Against this background it is not surprising that financial conflicts of interest may have played a major role in the abuses that occurred in two cancer drug experiments at The Hutch: Protocol 126 and Protocol 681. PROTOCOL: 126 FALSE PROMISES AND FATALITIESWhile it is involved in many aspects of cancer research and treatment, the Hutchinson Center is particularly well known for bone marrow transplants. It performs about 450 of these highly sophisticated procedures each year. One of its founders, Dr. E. Donnell Thomas, a 1990 Nobel Laureate in Medicine participated in the world’s first bone-marrow transplant in 1956. Risky and expensive (up to $300,000), bone-marrow transplants are often seen as the last hope for patients with leukemia. The procedure involves literally destroying the patient’s bone marrow, the blood producing cells in our bones, and then replacing it with marrow cells from a donor. If successful, the new healthy donor marrow produces normal blood cells. This outcome, however, is not guaranteed. The donor’s bone marrow must closely match that of the recipient, or the host’s body will reject the foreign tissue. In closely matched donors, however, such as siblings, the transplants are rejected only about 1% of the time. Even with a successful transplant, though, the patient is not out of the woods. About 25% of the patients who have a successful transplant end up experiencing a relapse of their disease. Moreover, initial success is no guarantee of renewed health. About half the time, even when a bone marrow transplant does take hold, or “engraft”. The patients develop what is called “Graft Versus Host Disease,” or GVHD. Between 20% and 30% of the patients that develop GVHD die. |
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