I think you’ve watched too much “House” and are assuming that the surgeons who did this must have been brilliant and on the right path, and review boards must be filled with stodgy traditionalists. Really smart people in research sometimes go down the wrong pathway. Entire fields of practice often do the wrong thing because leadership in the field led them them the wrong way (HRT, stress is the cause of stomach ulcers, lobotomies, etc.) It’s entirely possible, for some unforseen reason, that this protocol won’t work with the conditions that were tried, and if there were 100 people in the study, all 100 would die a quick, painful end. What if the review board had a member with a body of knowledge or an insight that would have made the treatment protocol successful? There are myriad last ditch treatment regimens that have differing amounts of data that are also promising, but fall well short of gold standard. Where those presented as options, or was this given as the only alternative to death? Even if these doctors are smart, there are plenty of successful docs who aren’t, but have devoted adherents. ex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz
Is it ok if they’re allowed to do these kind of experiments, with just a signed consent form from consenting patients?
I’ve worked in research, I’ve volunteered as a test subject in studies, including one that involved being injected with isotope. It’s important that research get done, but it’s damned foolishness to not have oversight.
