1978 Asthma Drug Study Under New Scrutiny
Two volunteers in a 1978 asthma study at UC San Francisco became sick after inhaling the same asthma drug that led to a death last month at Johns Hopkins University.
The San Francisco researchers didn’t report the two illnesses at the time because they believed them to be unrelated to the drug, university officials said Thursday.
The university opened a review of the 23-year-old study after volunteer Ellen Roche, 24, died June 2 at Johns Hopkins after inhaling the drug hexamethonium. The drug restricts airways in a study on how healthy lungs fight asthma.
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