Say Anything Blog

Ambulance workers in selected areas across the nation have begun using a new synthetic blood called PolyHeme in emergency situations. Predictably, this has has ticked a few people off.

From Wired News:

Thanks to an unusual loophole in the strict rules of medical ethics, hundreds of trauma patients in California, Texas and a few other states will be taking a gamble when ambulances come to scoop them up after accidents or acts of violence.

Without waiting to get consent, paramedics will inject a fake blood product into half of the eligible patients chosen to take part in a new study. The other half will get a routine treatment of transfusion with saline solution until they reach the hospital.

For now, the artificial blood, known as PolyHeme, isn't approved for general use. But it will still slip into the veins and arteries of unconscious patients who won't be able to say no.

"Emergency research in general creates a special set of circumstances," said Kelly Fryer-Edwards, a University of Washington medical ethicist whose colleagues across the country are divided over the wisdom of the blood study. "In a way, all of our usual approaches to research ethics -- to protecting human subjects, to trying to get informed consent -- just go out the window."

I first wrote about PolyHeme back in January, when the Grand Forks Herald ran an article on the subject. At that time, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was preparing to equip its trauma units with PolyHeme, but was asking for community feedback first. I'm curious as to whether or not any of the other hospitals did the same.

According to what I've heard from Minnesota, the use of PolyHeme was accepted by the public for the most part.

I'm not sure that this situation is quite as alarming as the Wired article is making it seem. In current emergency situations paramedics are using saline for blood-loss victims. Saline, as I'm sure you know, is basically water. PolyHeme would be a replacement for injecting water.

If I were in an ambulance bleeding to death I'd much rather them inject me with something like PolyHeme instead of something that amounts to water. But that's just me.

What we have to consider is that people have a basic right to dictate the type of medical treatment the receive. Now, PolyHeme could prove to be a revolutionary product that could save thousands of lives each year, but we won't know that until its tested in a real-world scenario. Unfortunately, in those real world scenarios its just not possible to obtain a release from the patient so that the experimental product can be used.

Its a tough issue, but I feel that as long as PolyHeme has been sufficiently tested in a laboratory setting and has had no indications that it will harm trauma patients, then we should let them use it.

These hospitals are trying to test a new product that could save a lot of lives. Its not like they're trying to harm anybody.