get into these trials."

In Zhirakarov's case, it got him into a trial for schizophrenics with the accompanying powerful drugs.

Zhirakarov began to show signs of an adverse drug reaction the first day he was included in the trial, April 11, 2002. Clinic staff documented he had a rapid heart rate. At this earliest of stages, clinicians should have taken him out of the trial and checked his heart for abnormalities, according to investigators. Instead, another dose was scheduled.

Eight days later, as the rapid heart rate continued, diarrhea began. Clinic staff attributed this development to a viral illness and recommended an over-the-counter antidiarrheal. Then, on April 24, his white blood cell count began to drop, according to data recorded by clinic staff. His blood pressure began to crash soon after,patients, an autopsy would later reveal.

Fabre's first progress note appears in the patient's file on this day and is recorded at 3:15 in the afternoon. It reads: "Patient was exam for complaints of diarrhea [I] ordered study meds to be discontinued (abnormal electrolyte results) diet clear fluids and lomotil as instructed."

The next day, Patient 059 died.

Dr. Louis Fernand Fabre should have been at the top of his game and feeling no pain. After 31 years of practicing mind medicine in Houston, he had just been named a Life Member of the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians. He'd been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and the British Journal of Psychiatry. And, more important, the big pharmaceutical companies had been leaning on him for decades to test out