Panel Urges Limits on X-SCID Trials

A U.S. advisory committee last week recommended limits on gene therapy trials in light of a third case of leukemia in a study in France. The panel suggested that U.S. studies of the same disease, X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID), should enroll only patients for whom conventional treatment has failed. However, trials of related diseases, as well as gene therapy trials using similar retroviral vectors, should continue, the panel said. The third leukemia “doesn't change the sense of unease dramatically,” said chair Mahendra Rao of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).