A renowned researcher calculates that 22,000 patients could have been saved if the Food and Drug Administration removed the heart surgery drug Trasylol two years ago, when his study revealed widespread death associated with it. The researcher, Dr. Dennis Mangano, also told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that Bayer, the drug's maker, failed to tell the FDA about negative results of their own Trasylol study and that the company's failure placed the drug's success before patient well-being.

Bayer suspended sales of the expensive drug, used to limit bleeding in heart surgery, last year at the request of the FDA, after a Canadian study of Trasylol was stopped because of patient deaths, causing a ban of the drug in Germany, where Bayer is based. At the height of its use, Trasylol was given to about a third of all heart bypass patients in the United States. In Germany, the figure was far higher.

Mangano believes Trasylol should have been taken off the market when he published his study in January 2006, a study that associated the drug's use with kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased death of those patients. Between the study’s publication and November 2007, when Bayer removed the drug, "There were approximately 431,000 patients who received the drug," says Mangano. "As I calculated, 22,000 lives could have been saved. It’s about a 1,000 lives per month," he tells Pelley.

Learn more about Trasylol dangers and your legal rights by visiting our Trasylol legal information page.