Heart Study Pauses Amid U.S. Probe

Doctors have stopped adding people to a study of a treatment for heart disease. They did this because of an investigation, the Associated Press said September 26. U.S. officials want to know whether people were told about treatment risks. Some doctors also have been removed from the study. They had criminal records or had been disciplined by state boards. The study treatment is called chelation. It uses the drug disodium EDTA. Some believe it will bind to calcium in artery walls and remove it. About 1,500 heart attack survivors are in the study so far. They receive either EDTA or a placebo. But EDTA has been linked to kidney failure and other side effects. Some people taking it in the past have died.