Two university students nearly died in an experiment where they were given lethal doses of caffeine by scientists who got their math wrong.
The pair – who were studying at the University of Northumbria in England – were left in intensive care and needing dialysis.
Scientists running the trials miscalculated the quantity of caffeine administered by a factor of 100, giving their subjects 30g of caffeine instead of the intended dosage, 0.3g.
It was the equivalent of a person drinking 300 cups of coffee at once, and more importantly, was almost twice the 18g dosage considered fatal.
The student volunteers, Alex Rossetto and Luke Parkin, needed to spend several days in hospital and experienced rapid weight loss of more than 20lbs each. One suffered short-term memory loss, according to The Telegraph.
Both made a full recovery – though in a lawsuit brought against the university for the error the court heard that they were at risk of death.
Prosecutor Adam Farrar told Newcastle Crown Court that the staff involved in the experiment “were not experienced” and that the university “took no steps” to assist them, according to the BBC.
The miscalculation, he said, was done on a mobile phone calculator, where a crucial decimal point was omitted.
Northumbria University was fined £400,000 ($500,000) for putting the lives of the students at such grave risk.
In a statement, they acknowledged the failings of the experiment, accepted the fine, and apologised.
The statement said: “The University is genuinely sorry for what happened in this case. This was an isolated incident. We reacted promptly to what took place.”
Featured image via Flickr/bl4ckix
