Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Amanda Twellman-Dieppa Dead from Hodgkin’s Disease

Readers may recall the plight of Amanda Twellman-Dieppa, who fought to gain access to clinical trials for the experimental drug ‘MDX-60’, which was in phase II clinical trials, and was not planning to take additional patients.

The Medarex company graciously added Amanda to their trials, and hope was high for good results. The treatments began on May 25th.

I am saddened to say that, although the drug did not produce any malignant effects, Amanda contracted pneumonia around the first of July, and passed away the evening of July 19. More information on Amanda's final days may be found here.

Jeffrey King wrote what amounts to a brief and poignant obituary, finishing with an appropriate request:

Please pray for her family, her friends, and her husband Aaron


May the Lord indeed provide solace and comfort for the family, and for all such patients who fight for the health and life we so often take for granted.



(thanks to ThreeBadFingers for the information)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here is what Amanda emailed a few weeks ago:

"I completed all four of my MDX 060 infusions as of June 15th and hopefully I will be tested to see the results in the next month or so. In the meantime I am fighting one of the worst cases of pneumonia and it is pretty tough. It is not related to the treatment, but it looks like I may have caught this because I had stopped taking some medication a few months ago that would have prevented this from happening."

Amanda was a wonderful young lady, her trust was strongly in Jesus, and she is certainly in the arms of our Lord now.