Was rather sickened by one part

He truly believed it would work and there's really not much damage he could have done to those catatonic people. It was pretty much a "nothing to lose" situation.
I don't mean to impose, but I am the Ocean.

They kept using multiple shots of Williams' face, concerned, as he ordered the higher doses. He obviously had concerns over possible side effects.




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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

I didnt see anything wrong with it - what was the alternative? body chemistry changes everytime it adjusts to a new drug

I'm really shocked at people on this thread being prepccupied by "the ends jusifying the means." Just because the drug turned out successfully for a short time, does not mean it was handled properly. I don't exactly know how it went about in real life, but I do believe the movie shows it basically as it was. And it did deviate from scientific standards. Everyone is too busy celebrating the doctor's method (in the film anyway) because of the outcomes, but had it gone disastrously wrong, everyone would be singing a different tune.

Double blind studies are supposed to be employed. The doctor and patient (or patient's gaurdian) are not supposed to even know who gets the drug in the early stages. You do not haphazardly increase a drug's use hoping "just a little more" will take effect, It's not supposed to be a one-man-show, where only one doctor is overseeing all of the elements of the "study." Of course, no one cared about these parients except this doctor, so he is hailed as a hero. Technically he had not done anything unethical, given these highly unlikely circumstances, and I do salute him for not viewing these people as "throwaways." Nonetheless, modern science almost never works this way, so I ultimately agree with this OP.

You're 100% correct, SplitPersonality. Read the book by Oliver Sacks. While some of the real patients were able to give consent (more because of the doctor's persuasion and hope than anything else), Sacks damaged most of them permanently, and the treatment wound up killing some of them, either by violent reactions or because they simply couldn't stand L-DOPA anymore.

So, yes--you hit the nail on the head. Precisely.

I know this a post a couple years old, but, I finally watched this after many years of wanting, but just never getting to it. I thought what you did, at first. Until I thought of Lorenzo's Oil, another great film. Even though that diesese led to death, I feel similar. These people were alive inside of basically a statue. They were literally trapped inside a vessel but they were alive! I don't know about you, but if that were me, or my child I would try anything to get them out of there! Can you imagine living inside a body you can't escape. You can't tell anyone your wishes. I feel it's a date worse than death. So, I'd try anything. But, the part of this story that is worse than that is the fact they went back into that catatonic state. I feel that is the saddest part. To get the chance to live, then slowly return. If doctors never go against the rules, we wouldn't have things like the rabies vaccine. Yes, sometimes the doctors are wrong. But sometimes they are not. If they are trying this on people who have no other option, that's one thing. The Tuskegee experiment is totally different. That was a horrible thing and not at all the same thing as what this doctor did.

If you look into the cancer trials going on at Duke University, they are curing cancer that before these treatments were 100% non treatable. The first person did wonderfully. I think, the 2nd or 3rd did die. But they upped the dose and there were complications. That's what a clinical trial is. It's risky. But when you're dealing with a disease that is fatal you have any other options? And yes, this disease in the movie wasn't fatal, but if I had the choice of trying and possibly dying, or living my entire life like that, I'd try. But that's me.

Whatever the arguments, the procedures shown would not be allowed today.

OTOH, movies show many procedures which are not allowed. Some are prohibited only by human-made laws. Many of the most popular are disallowed by the laws of physics. Some of both kinds are there just to improve the story-telling.

In medical experiments, what's allowed has evolved over the years. A hundred years ago, nothing would have been thought of the drug experiments shown in this movie. Note that the patients are still being given the best care known at the time, up to the ambiguity of the untested drug. To say there is little difference from the Tuskegee syphilis experiment is totally out of line -- those experiments actively denied patients treatments (especially penicillin, once it became available) known to be effective. That's totally different from trying a new drug, one that's generally recognized as safe, in patients who are continuing all known effective care and treatment. (The latter was nothing but warehousing in post-encephalitis lethargica, but that doesn't change the fact that they were getting the best care available.)

Clinical trials start with Phase I, which only determines minimal safety issues, on less than 100 patients. Since l-dopa was already in use for Parkinson's, Phase I was irrelevant. However, any reasonable use would have started with Phase II. It also would have had a control group.

I find that the dosage for Parkinson's is

Initial: 250 to 500 mg orally twice a day with meals.
Maintenance: 3000 to 6000 mg/day in 3 or more divided doses.

There seems to be some differences depending on source. However, I find it very likely that the dosages in 1969 were not much different from this, so there was no chance of overdose at the levels given. In fact, I found myself laughing at the Dr Sayers' agonizing over 100mg increments -- in reality it would have been more like "250 isn't working, let's go to 500".

Edward