IF LAURA-JANE Filotrani thinks by accepting a fee, the six young drug trial volunteers were "asking for" gangrenous hands and feet and a possible life-time of damaged immunity from an underinsured company which had never made a drug before, then she is talking out of a rather different part of her anatomy than her lip (Shooting From The Lip, News Shopper, April 12).

The way in which this drug trial was carried out seems highly open to question, as is the degree to which the seriousness of possible side effects was explained.

The trials volunteers are the last people who should be held in any way responsible for this shambles.

DEIRDRE MASON
Address supplied