As if it weren't enough that they swelled up horribly, tore at their flesh, and had to have their toes amputated, recent tests show they have no detectable T-cells.

Without toes, you can't walk. Without T-cells, the victims are susceptible to a variety of auto-immune diseases where the body attacks itself.

This is the very condition that the drug was designed to treat.

Having paid a nominal sum to the victims, Parexel denies further liability. Some of the patients are suing, but they may not live to see their legal effort's fruition.

Renewed ordeal of the Elephant Men The Sunday Times. (Thanks to Francis!)

Some more details are coming out about the clinical trial, which has put six men into the hospital, two of whom are not expected to recover. Raste Khan, one of the men who received the placebo, has described the experience of watching his peers drop like flies as "like Russian Roulette".

"This one man was yelling 'doctor, my head hurts, my back hurts. I need help, I can't breathe.' He was just shouting and rambling to himself," said Khan, one of two men given a placebo.

"Everyone was continuously vomiting," Khan said in an interview broadcast Thursday on Sky News.

"It was like Russian Roulette — two of us got away and were lucky."

Another person who applied for the clinical trial but did not decide to participate had this to say:

"I went through and read ... the consent form they got me to sign while rushing me. It didn't really explain it fully in there, so when I tried to contact them, there was no answer and no return of my message so I just left it at that and decided not to pursue it."

When we reported on this story yesterday, some of you seemed to think we were insinuating that TeGenero meant for this to happen. Of course they didn't. That doesn't change the fact that this sort of thing should not happen in properly conducted and researched clinical trials. Quotes like the above make it extremely obvious that this was neither. You don't get fucking sloppy with people's lives.

Drug test 'like Russian Roulette' [CNN]
Related: Drug Trial Goes Horribly Wrong