Public Citizen sues FDA over plans for secret meeting

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Public Citizen has filed an emergency law suit to force the FDA to open what was scheduled to be a secret meeting scheduled for Friday, July 14, 2006 on an experimental blood substitute product. The U.S. Navy has submitted a proposal to test Hemopure, a blood substitute product derived from cows' blood on civilian trauma patients. The FDA has reportedly turned down three separate requests from the Navy of this nature and Public Citizen which follows such matters closely wants its medical director to be present and to comment to protect the public interest. One of the concerns with this type of study is that patients will be given this experimental drug without obtaining their informed consent. This raises very serious issues which should be publicly discussed.