Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Prof. Trudo Lemmens provided insight to CTV about some of the problems with the clinical testing industry. The story was prompted by the discovery of twenty cases of tuberculosis in subjects who took part in a clinical trial at a biopharmaceutical lab in Quebec ("20 people test positive for TB after Quebec trial," Canada AM,  March 10, 2006).

Prof. Lemmens explained that "The pharmaceutical industries want to have drugs on the market and they want to have them on the market quickly. So they contract research organizations to do the human subject research for them. These companies are paid for the outcome, which is to have the trials done as quickly as possible, and so they have significant financial incentives to recruit human subjects and research them very quickly."

Read the full story, and watch the television interview with Prof. Lemmens.

(The video link is in the right-hand column of the page)