The other day, a local network TV station in Philadelphia had a short segment about a meningococcemia death on the 11 o'clock news. The video showed the outside of a hospital with a graphic that read, "MENENGITIS // Huntington, NJ". In the audio, a reporter said, "a child has died here from a rare blood disease known as meningococcemia." The clip then showed the grief stricken family that was shocked at the suddenness of the event.
This leads me to ask the question, do we know the names of which hospitals are participating in the phase III trial? If this hospital was one of them, then I certainly hope this kid was in the placebo group.
Also, if the fact that a child has died from meningococcemia is in the public domain, and the names of the hospitals doing the trials is in the public domain, then with some leg work, one could determine the number of deaths in the trial. So why is this information only privy to the company?
- Ed. |
