Abiomed


July 28, 2001


BOB GARFIELD: Last week we interviewed the New York Times medical correspondent, Dr. Lawrence Altman. He was exasperated by a company called Abiomed which had slapped a month long news blackout on the recent implantation of its newly developed artificial heart. Altman wrote a scathing article quoting ethicists and physicians who all agreed the blackout wasn't serving the public! Abiomed has since allowed its doctors to speak to reporters. We invited Abiomed to respond to its critics. Brooke has the company's response.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:The company writes: Larry Altman seems to believe that patients surrender their rights to privacy and personal dignity when they volunteer to participate in high profile medical device trials. Loss of privacy is indeed a risk of trial participation, but it need not be passively accepted. No one, not the press, not the general public, has a right for or right to real-time intimately personal clinical details about trial participants. On this point, the presence of federal research funding is a straw man. Researchers are accountable to the public through full and complete reports of results supported by documentation of unimpeachable integrity, not through patient-specific news briefings. And the company goes on: Abiomed believes that individual clinical trial participants can be sheltered from unwanted intrusions without compromising the integrity of public reporting of the progress and results of ongoing research. We've designed and tried to implement policies that serve the public's legitimate interest without victimizing the patient. We announced our policies well before the heart trial began. They are independent of how individual patients fare. Our efforts have engendered many more positive comments than criticisms from ethicists and physicians, and we are committed to the path we have chosen. [MUSIC TAG]