High doses of a heart drug are found to be dangerous. The New York Times, 17 October 1994, A14 Lawrence K. Altman
Two studies, designed to test the effectiveness of the drug heperin routinely used to treat heart attacks, were stopped (in April) early when it was noticed that high doses of the drug were causing lethal bleeding in some of the patients. Doctors are just now being publicly alerted to this danger. Authors of the study explain that the delay was caused by concern about their work being peer-reviewed and also to allow for a careful presentation that would not discourage physicians from using the drug in moderate amounts. On the other hand, the delay was criticized because it was known that doctors were at times using doses larger than those that had been found to produce unacceptable results. DISCUSSION QUESTION Do you think the delay in publicizing this result was justified?