Washington

The death this month of a woman taking part in an asthma study at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, has prompted a formal investigation by the US Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).

The experiment, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was designed to study how lung function differs in asthmatic and healthy people. In an attempt to find out why the airways remain open when irritating chemicals are inhaled, healthy people were asked to inhale substances that affect these airways.

Some of the research subjects, who were paid about $60 a visit up to a maximum of $365, inhaled hexamethonium, which can temporarily paralyse some nerves in the airways. Those subjects, and others who had inhaled a saline-solution control, then took an asthma test.

The death at Johns Hopkins comes at a time when research using human subjects is under increased scrutiny in the United States. After the death in 1999 of a young man in a gene-therapy experiment at the University of Pennsylvania, the US government transferred responsibility for overseeing such research from the NIH's Office for Protection from Research Risks to the new OHRP, under the direct supervision of the US health secretary. Investigation of this latest death will provide the first major test of the new arrangement.

The exploratory focus of the asthma experiment has already attracted criticism. Vera Sharav, president of the New York-based Citizens for Responsible Care & Research, calls it a “fishing expedition” best reserved for animals, not people. “People should be protected from this kind of experiment,” she says.