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A general practitioner in Britain has been struck off after the professional conduct committee of the General Medical Council decided that he had entered patients for paid drug trials without their consent (see p.789) Dr Geoffrey Fairhurst, 57, a former government health adviser, practised in St Helens, Merseyside. Sir Donald Irvine, president of the GMC, expressed particular concern that Dr Fairhurst had served on a research ethics committee.
Dr Fairhurst signed agreements to test various drugs including captopril, bumetanide, and lacidipine between 1988 and 1993. He was accused of forging four patients' consent forms and prescribing them drugs without telling them they were taking...