It seems that a Danish doctor discovered that a drug administered to patients for use in conjunction with a GE MRI scan has had devastating effects on some of them—including death. GE is going after the doctor for libel even though it admits that there could be problems with the drug.

[Henrik] Thomsen, one of Europe’s leading radiologists, revealed how patients treated at his hospital had subsequently contracted a rare and potentially fatal disease. Thomsen and other doctors at his Copenhagen University hospital were baffled as to why 20 kidney patients who had been given routine scans were afflicted by a disorder — nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) — in which the skin gradually swells, thickens and tightens. Some sufferers were confined to wheelchairs. At least one died. There was no known cure.

Then, in March 2006, there was a breakthrough. It was confirmed that all those who had fallen ill with NSF had been given the same drug in advance of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Omniscan was used to enhance the images produced by the scan. The product was sold around the world and was manufactured by GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric, one of the world’s largest corporations.

Thomsen, however, now refuses to speak anywhere in England on the possible risks of Omniscan. The reason is that he faces another kind of storm: GE Healthcare is suing him in the High Court for libel. The company claims his presentation in Oxford, entitled Management Aspects of NSF, was highly defamatory. GE has already racked up costs of more than £380,000 pursuing the respected academic, who has authored or co-authored nearly 400 papers and delivered countless presentations to his peers. Thomsen will have to pay the firm’s costs if he loses the case. In recent weeks, The Sunday Times has highlighted how London’s draconian libel laws are being used to silence critics of the rich and the powerful.

"Calling Dr. Block."

[Thanks to Mark Fee]

UPDATE: Don Fantry writes:

I am an MRI technologist who works with both GE equipment and Omniscan contrast. The article was accurate. Every patient over 60, or diabetic or at any renal impairment risk now is screened for creatine: a measure of kidney function in the body.

In the US, the data I have seen does show that Omniscan did cause the most cases of NSF. GE claims that is due to the fact they have the most market share, so the brand shouldn't be signaled out. Also, all the patients that acquired this awful disease were either on dialysis already or had minimal kidney function. Also, according to GE, these patients also received high doses. In MRI: typically patients depending on weight receive 10–20 ml, but on MRA exams, sometimes are given much more (30–60ml) since you have to time the contrast getting to arteries and often need more to get good images.

GFR is the measure to determine if someone can get MRI contrast. It is Glomerular Filtration Rate and is an indication of how the kidneys are eliminating toxins from the body. There are calculations based on creatine level, age, body weight, race, sex to help determine GFR. GFR levels below 30 are NOT given contrast, and GFR 30–59 is given a half dose of another brand of contrast in the hospital that I work in.

Just wanted to give you some basic background on what we do now. I really think that GE probably did not know of the risks beforehand. NSF is also a very complicated disease and it seems to cause permanent immune system damage. But I know for sure that they went into extreme damage control when this news came out, and I was a little suspicious of Omniscan having the most patients involved.

And Robert Kaercher writes:

Just saw your post about GE’s dangerous Omniscan product. I happen to know a victim of this potentially life-threatening product. It was administered to her for an MRI done prior to a kidney transplant even though—based on the article you linked—at the time it was given to her there had already been reports from doctors for quite some time that this thing was causing all sorts of trouble for people with renal problems, possibly even death. She’s fortunately survived it, but she continues to suffer from the swelling and tightening of her skin mentioned in the article.

It’s worth noting that this is the kind of situation that misinformed critics of free market ideas frequently use as propaganda fodder in their assaults on economic freedom. Why, look what happens when benevolent and omniscient government bureaucrats aren’t looking after our well being!

What they totally ignore is that this type of situation is hardly the result of free market forces. The article you cited makes it clear that the FDA bureaucracy has been agonizingly slow in reviewing the claims against Omniscan, thus giving doctors and hospitals a false sense of the product’s safety in the meantime. This is a tragic example of how substituting trust in government bureaucracy for trust in unhampered market choice interferes with the market’s in-built feedback mechanism and delays the weeding out of harmful products. GE is also a corporate warfare-state contractor, so they don’t have much incentive to do the utmost due diligence for product safety so long as they can externalize to the unwitting taxpayer the costs of settling with their victimized customers in the form of billions of dollars’ worth of sweetheart deals with the mass murdering Uncle Sam. No doubt their intellectual property privileges do much to carry them toward that end as well.

And I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before welfare-warfare state businesses like GE will be able to take advantage of onerous libel laws in the U.S. similar to those they currently enjoy in England…? In light of the retroactive legal immunities Congress granted telecom corporations that participated in domestic spying, I could easily see it happening.