The unlawful destruction of a medical research program in Memphis, Tennessee in the early 2000s doomed the lives of millions.
Several months ago, I received an email from Dr. G. Umberto Meduri, a brilliant and prolific research scientist who is recognized by his peers as the global expert on the study and use of corticosteroids in acute respiratory illnesses. In the email, Dr. Meduri—who is a co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC)—attached a “still confidential” document to the email detailing the shocking story of the targeted destruction —between 2001-2002 — of the Memphis Lung Research Program (MLRP), of which Dr. Meduri was the director.
As I read through the document, the words on the pages revealed a story that defied all sense of reason. How could a plan to scuttle Dr. Meduri’s lifesaving research on corticosteroids have been conceived in the halls of a well-respected Memphis, Tennessee university? How could such a carefully coordinated strike against a cutting-edge scientific laboratory have ever been deployed — with such devastating public health consequences?
And how in heaven’s name could this have been perpetrated against a man who I had come to know through our work together in the FLCCC as one of the kindest, most honest, compassionate, accomplished and brilliant men I ever had the pleasure to meet?
Yet here it was on my computer screen. Fact after fact on page after page showed that the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) — a major scientific institution of health in the United States —had irreparably damaged its own research into corticosteroids, an inexpensive, off-patent and life-saving treatment for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)— while fully aware of the grave consequences to public health.
This action to shut down the MLRP was carried out by several members of the staff and administration of UTHSC in violation of university and federal regulations — aided by an investigator for Eli Lilly, a major pharmaceutical company that was then in the approval phase of their brand new drug, Xigris™, to be used for severe sepsis, the leading cause of ARDS; the New England Journal of Medicine, a high-impact medical journal that published the paper for Xigris™ while ignoring the submission of a positive trial on corticosteroid treatment for severe sepsis; and official regulatory and public health agencies.
These facts about the destruction of the MLRP are particularly heartbreaking:
— Its ruination caused the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world with ARDS to be lost during the years spanning 2002-2020.
— The program’s decimation also caused hundreds of thousands of critically ill patients around the world with COVID-related ARDS in 2019 and 2020 to lose their lives.
In 2002, when Dr. Meduri’s research program was destroyed, the study he was leading was already positive, showing that 50% of those with ARDS survived with the use of corticosteroids. All who participated in the action against Dr. Meduri were aware of the results. So had that trial been completed, the lab not destroyed— and then a follow-up confirmatory trial conducted— a full 50% or more of those who perished would still be alive today.
But none of that happened. Dr. Meduri’s work lay in shambles. He was accused of scientific misconduct —and although all accusations were later retracted, the damage had already been done to his previously (well-earned) sterling reputation. Opportunities for Dr. Meduri to speak and share the results of his research at medical conferences all but evaporated.
In fact, after the destruction of the MLRP, there would not be another Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) of corticosteroids for ARDS in the United States. In 2020, a Spanish RCT confirmed the effectiveness of corticosteroids in ARDS—vindicating Dr. Meduri’s research. However, the misperception about steroids remained when COVID crashed upon American shores in early 2020—and abroad even earlier than that. The use of corticosteroids to treat COVID-related ARDS was not the standard of care —which it would have been had the MLRP not been destroyed.
In late June of 2020, Oxford University in the UK published its Recovery Trial on corticosteroids— a trial that had to be stopped 6 weeks early because those in the control group with ARDS who were not receiving corticosteroids were dying. Still, it took the WHO three more months to come off of its dire warning to medical providers the world over NOT to use corticosteroids for COVID.
In the nine months following the beginning of the worldwide use of corticosteroids for COVID-related ARDS, UK health officials reported that the repurposed drug had saved over a million lives globally.
Dr. Meduri knew for decades precisely how to save these millions of dying patients. And though he passionately appealed to health officials at the start of COVID-19 to offer hospitalized patients corticosteroids, pleas from the world’s expert on corticosteroids fell on unhearing ears.
There is an abundance of documentary evidence for all that has been alleged here that can be used in an official investigation—or several investigations. Dr. Meduri is telling his story now, after years of weighty legal entanglements, in order to spark a worldwide examination into the actions that occurred in Memphis from 2001-2002‚ and continued until 2019.
Journalists, step forward.
Congress, we have evidence you must see and act upon immediately.
Administration officials, do your jobs and get to the bottom of this.
Doctors and scientists, do the research, and write about this.
Regulatory agencies, blow the whistle on yourselves.
As Dr. Meduri said, “The families of those who died unnecessarily call for justice.” Will you give it to them?
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Joyce Kamen is the VP of public information at the Frontline Covid19 Critical Care Alliance (flccc.net). She is an Emmy award-winning writer, publicist, journalist, columnist, and producer of documentary films.
