Doctor Launches Viral Drug Campaign

A doctor whose life saving research was being ignored by other medics has launched a viral campaign to get his message heard.

Professor Ian Roberts carried out research suggesting that at least 140,000 lives worldwide could be saved each year if trauma victims were given a cheap clotting drug that stops them bleeding.

But a year after publishing the study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal, he found only 3% of eligible patients in Britain were being given an injection of tranexamic acid.

In an unprecedented attempt to change medical practice, Professor Roberts, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , commissioned an animated video, which he hopes will be emailed around the world.

He told Sky News: "It costs around £6 to treat an adult with this drug. It is one of the most cost-effective ways of saving a life that exists in modern medicine.

"But the drug's cost is part of the problem. There is not the same incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to promote it as there is for an expensive blockbuster.

"We wanted to find a way of communicating the trial results with other doctors."

Prof Roberts worked with his nephew Hywel Roberts, who is an animation student in Bristol, to create a 40-second video that features a bleeding car crash victim.

Hywel said: "I was shocked when my uncle told me how many lives could be saved if more hospitals and doctors used tranexamic acid.

"I didn't realised how many obstacles there can be to patients getting the best treatment even after scientific research has provided the evidence."