INDIA: Supreme Court blasts the government for turning citizens into guinea pigs It should not have taken a Supreme Court order for the Indian government to know that it cannot turn its citizenry into guinea pigs for private companies. This is one of the very basic duties, the raison dêtre in fact, of a government bound to protect the lives and dignity of its citizens. Sadly, the Government of India cannot take recourse to the argument of ignorance or that it did not know. It has been well aware of the unethical practices adopted by the private interests as evidenced by the outrage over the death of seven girls in post-licensure clinical trials conducted on tribal girls in Khammam in Andhra Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujarat in 2010. The trials, jointly conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the state governments to test the efficacy of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, were suspended after the uproar. The inquiry committee formed to look into the issue found serious violations of the ICMR guidelines, mostly over consent related issues, and yet chose not to fix any criminal culpability of those responsible on the pretext that there was no deliberate or planned attempt to cause damage to persons taking part in the trials.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 16:24:12 +0000
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