WASHINGTON — A key part of a controversial project that has been testing experimental treatments on trauma victims has been shut down after the researchers discovered that one new therapy offered no benefit and that patients receiving it appeared to die more quickly.
The research was subject to intense ethical debates because the patients, who often were unconscious or disoriented because of their injuries, could not give consent to participate.
More analysis will be needed to examine why there were more deaths initially among the patients receiving the experimental treatment, a concentrated form of a salt solution that was being tested in seriously injured patients who were in shock from severe blood loss, federal officials said Thursday.
