Panel Rejects Drug for Gehrig’s Disease

Partially paralyzed patients sobbed as they pleaded with the government to approve a drug that promised to modestly slow their Lou Gehrig’s disease. But a panel of scientific advisors to the Food and Drug Administration in Bethesda, Md., rejected their pleas, voting 6-3 that there was not enough evidence that the drug Myotrophin would help patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS. The problem: One study suggested the drug could delay patients’ worsening paralysis by three months--and eventually increase life by an equal time--but a second study showed no benefit.