A group of medical ethicists are blasting Northfield Laboratories' study of its blood substitute Polyheme, saying that patients are being denied blood transfusions without being asked to provide consent or have family members provide consent. The study is being carried out under a federal "informed consent" exemption that requires community briefings and a chance for residents to bow out by wearing an identifying bracelet. But the ethicists claim that the briefings never informed residents that they would be given the blood substitute even after they had arrived at the hospital.

Polyheme was the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal report that said Northfield had never fully disclosed the results of a 2000 study in which 10 people suffered heart attacks. Northfield Chairman Dr. Steven Gould says that the company was not being secretive and that the study had been halted due to declining enrollment. The ethicists--writing in the American Journal of Bioethics--say that anyone participating in the new trial has never been properly informed about that 2000 study. Medical authorities are closely following the new trial since a blood substitute would revolutionize trauma medicine.

- here's the AP report