In a case that has garnered world-wide attention, physicians at Johns Hopkins Hospital administered Hexamethonium to a healthy 24-year-old woman, Helen Roche, in an attempt to study how the lungs of healthy people protect against asthma attacks. A few weeks later, Ms. Roche died from complications caused by the drug.

Recent reports in the Baltimore Sun have suggested that the medical researcher who administered the dose failed to uncover published research suggesting the potentially lethal side effects associated with inhalation of Hexamethonium. According to the Baltimore Sun, investigators found that Dr. Alkis Togias made a "good faith effort" to research the drug’s possible side effects, but his research apparently focused on online resources, including PubMed, which is searchable only back to 1960. Previous articles published in the 1950’s, however, with citations in subsequent publications, warned of lung damage associated with Hexamethonium.

Dr. Frederick Wolff, a professor emeritus at the George Washington School of Medicine, told reporters, "What happened is not just an indictment of one researcher, but of a system in which people don’t bother to research the literature anymore." "These people should have been speaking to a medical librarian," says Edward Morman, College Librarian and Director of the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Mr. Morman noted that a tragedy might have been avoided if an information professional had been involved and a manual search of pre-1960 medical indexes had been performed.

* This information originally appeared in Library Journal Academic Newswire on July 24, 2001. Thank you to Jessica R. Alexander, Reference Librarian, for sharing this information with Footnotes. To learn more about Library Journal Academic Newswire visit the website at http://www.libraryjournal.com/newswire/newswire.asp.