FROM THE PRESS
Finally, action taken on research
death
Three months after 22-year-old Dharmesh Vasava died shortly
after he participated in 'bio-equivalence' tests by Sun Pharma Advance Research
Centre, police arrested two Sun Pharma employees in connection with the death.
The tests were conducted on 30 volunteers, most of whom were paid. Sun Pharma
director Shailesh Desai said that all norms had been followed and that they had
had the required permission for the tests. Times News Network. Two drug firm
staffers held as man died after tests. The Times of India, January 4,
2003
Human guinea pigs
Bayer
CropScience of Mannheim, Germany, one of the world's biggest chemical companies,
faces an inquiry after it was found to have paid students 450 pounds sterling,
in 1998-2000, to drink fruit juice laced with pesticide. The Nuremberg Code bans
the use of humans for testing poisonous substances that have no medical
application.
Volunteers were fed undisclosed dosages of
azinphos-methyl (AM), an organophosphorus chemical. The blood and nervous system
disorders linked to exposure to AM are well documented. Bayer has not checked on
the subsequent health of its human guinea pigs.
The EPA has referred the studies to an expert panel
of the National Academy of Sciences, to get an opinion 'on whether these human
studies are ethically and scientifically valid'.
Louis Rogers. Firm paid
students to take pesticide test. The Sunday Times, London. Reprinted in The
Times of India, January 16, 2003
Pollution punishment
Four years
after the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998, were framed by
the Maharashtra government, plans are finally afoot for the Maharashtra
Pollution Control Board's (MPCB) first prosecution. Following an inspection by
its regional officer, the MPCB will seek the government's permission to
prosecute a civil surgeon heading the Alibaug Civil Hospital in Raigad district.
According to the guidelines, hospitals are expected to either incinerate or
autoclave biomedical waste. The hospital did not do so; nor did it install the
required equipment or even apply to the government for the necessary
funds.
Express News Service. Civil surgeon to be prosecuted for flouting
waste disposal norms. Indian Express, December 28, 2002
Poor service, poor
academics
The state government-run 1,300-bedded JJ hospital in
Mumbai, once the state's premier hospital and teaching centre, now has idle MRI
and ultrasound machines because there is no money to repair them. Key telephone
and fax lines have been cut off and the morgue was shut down for a year because
of unpaid bills. The radiology department was shut because vital machinery was
out of order for weeks and open heart surgery could not be done for much of the
year because the heart-lung machine had stopped.
Rekha Dixit. Funds
crunch hits JJ hospital. The Times of India, January 4, 2003
Graceless medial
students
Eighty-nine medical students in Nashik were remanded to
medical custody for a day for storming the collector's cabin. They had been
agitating to demand revision in the grace marks policy and scrapping of the
internal assessment system. Other demands included elimination of the three-tier
fee structure, revival of the revaluation system and availability of copies of
answer books.
Express News Service. 89 medical students jailed, give bandh
call. The Indian Express, February 3, 2003
The ones that got away
Senior
doctors M G Rathod, Mohan Jagde, Chetan Oberoi, V S V Machiswala, Vimal
Kasbekar, S M Haridas and K C Mohanty at JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College,
Mumbai, were accused in 1995 of misusing their official status to aid underworld
elements. All were exonerated owing to the failure of the medical education
department to provide adequate evidence against them.
One committee, which existed only on paper, found
no evidence. After another committee confirmed that the seven doctors under
inquiry had links with criminals and recommended stringent action against them,
a fresh probe was launched, which too confirmed that the doctors were linked to
criminals and called for a departmental inquiry and criminal prosecution as
well.
However, medical superintendent M L Lankeshwar
could not provide adequate evidence against the doctors.
Prafulla
Marpakwar. Guilty doctors free, thanks to govt. The Indian Express, December 29,
2003
Corrupt examiners-same old
story
When Professor B M Sabnis was nabbed while accepting a bribe
in April 1994 for passing a candidate, it seemed that the scandal would compel a
cleansing of the medical examination system. Today, however, he teaches at a
government medical college in Yevatmal and is vying for a plum job in JJ
Hospital in Mumbai.
Why wasn't stern action taken? 'While the
Anti-Corruption Bureau completed investigations within six months, the
government gave permission to prosecute Dr Sabnis only after three years. The
chargesheet was filed in 1997 and the matter is now in court. 'When a case comes
up after 10 years the students are elsewhere, witnesses have forgotten and the
chances of conviction are much lower,' says A S Samra who then headed the ACB.
Adds a Mantralaya official, 'Public servants are usually suspended for a year,
except in extraordinary circumstances. So after a year Dr Sabnis was
reinstated.'
Cases like that of Dr Sabnis and Dr R G Bhusale-a
JJ hospital doctor who was implicated in a paper leakage scam in 2000 but is
back at work today-can only have emboldened others.
Thus, at the recent MBBS examinations, fresh
controversies have been thrown up. Students'castes, political leanings,
inter-college rivalry, whimsical, vindictive behaviour by examiners-and
bribery-affected results.
Shabnam Minwalla. Bribery virus puts MBBS exam
system to the test. The Times of India, January 13, 2003
Kidney sales in Pakistan
The
kidney trade has assumed alarming proportions in Pakistan, with an illegal
network that extends from villages all the way to hospitals in Rawalpindi. The
stronghold of the brokers is the Sultanpur Mela and the adjoining villages of
tehsil Bhalwal, where hundreds of people have sold a kidney.
The governor has directed the district government
here to submit a full report on the sale of kidneys. DCO Malik Hassan Iqbal told
Dawn that his team recorded statements of various persons and said that people
were selling their kidneys only to overcome poverty and clear their debts. Some
did so to release a relative from bonded labour. Some had to pay for the
treatment of a relative who fell ill after selling a kidney. Poor postoperative
care has rendered many unable to work for a living.
Mr Tassadaq Hussain Baloch, member, Punjab Bar
Council, called for legislation for curtailing kidney sales and stressed the
need for developing the sense of donation instead of monetary
gain.
Sajjad Abbas Niazi. Menace of kidney sale. Dawn, January 3, 2003
(sent by Aasim Ahmed, Karachi)
Missing kidney inquiry
Three
doctors from KEM hospital will inquire into the allegations of medical
negligence and removal of a kidney from a 62-year-old by two doctors of the
civic Mulund general hospital.
A man was operated upon at that hospital twice for
a hernia. Before the second operation a radiological testshowed a missing left
kidney. After the second operation the victim suffered from renal failure and
later died. His son lodged a police complaint accusing the doctors of removing
his father's left kidney. The police have charged the doctors with culpable
homicide not amounting to murder.
Times News Network. KEM doctors will
probe kidney removal case. The Times of India, January 13,
2003
Tamil Nadu's cottage industry-kidney
transplant
In almost every one of the 150-odd huts in Namalwarpet on
Kunnor High Road in north Chennai, there's someone who has sold a
kidney.
Non-related kidney donations must be approved by
the state authorisation committee which must satisfy itself that the donor is
'emotionally attached' to the recipient and there is no money transaction
between the two.
There are 45 recognised kidney transplant centres
in Tamil Nadu including 28 in Chennai, approved by the authorisation committee.
'We meet only once a week and we are forced to clear at least 30 cases in each
sitting,' says a representative in the committee from the directorate of health
services.
Pushpa Narayan. In Chennai neighbourhood kidney is a cottage
industry. The Indian Express, February 25, 2003
Can live unrelated transplants be ethical?
The Tamil Nadu government's plans to modify the system of
authorising live unrelated kidney donation are opposed by those who view live
unrelated transplants as a trade.
The government described its new plans at a
workshop for health professionals and stakeholders in the regulation of
transplantation of organs, organised by the department of humanities and social
sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.
The plans include a decentralised system and
partnership with non-governmental organisations with greater accountability for
the hospital, starting with routing all transplantation applications through it
rather than putting the onus on the committee.
However, this idea 'which is almost ready for final
approval' has been opposed by those who view the existing system of approvals as
nothing but commerce in organs.
Dr M K Mani said that there was no need for the
government to collaborate with the trade in kidneys. Every live unrelated
transplant was nothing but trading in the organ, exploiting the poor. The Act as
it stood was unworkable, and there should be a ban on unrelated donations, he
said, demanding greater government emphasis on cadaver donations as well as
preventive programmes for diabetes and hypertension, both of which were leading
causes of renal failure.
The state government, however, is going by the law,
which allows live unrelated transplant donation on the grounds provided for in
the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994. There were 20-30 applications
each week before the committee from across the state and it was practically not
possible to verify each case for facts, said Ms Girija Vidyanathan, health
secretary.
The director of medical education, C
Ravindranath, disclosed that the BBC had reported that several transplants had
been done for British nationals in hospitals in the state and wanted the
government's comment. However, there was no report filed with the government,
indicating that these might not have gone through the authorisation
committee.
Special correspondent. Panel to be decentralised for kidney
donation approvals. The Hindu, March 9, 2003
Dangerous drugs
Alprax or
Alprazolam, a generic anti-anxiety medicine, has become the drug in demand among
urban Indians. Professionals, socialites and housewives reach for this
low-priced drug as a way to still that anxiety tic which is fast becoming a
side-effect of life. Chemists sell the drug freely even though it should be sold
only by prescription. Consumers are unaware that it is addictive and can produce
side-effects like drowsiness, memory loss, slurring of speech and loss of
immunity to infections.
Piali Bannerjee. New trend in chill pill abuse
triggers alarm. The Times of India, February 9, 2003
Call for an immediate ban on dangerous
drugs
The Delhi High Court asked the Centre's Drug Technical
Advisory Board (DTAB) to examine the safety of the analgesic Nimesulide, which a
petition alleges has been banned worldwide. The DTAB will find whether the Drug
Controller has approved the drug. The Court also ordered that the manufacture of
Astemizole and Terfenadine, used for skin disorders, be stopped from April 1.
Social Jurist, an organisation of lawyers, has alleged in a Public Interest
Litigation that the government is allowing the manufacture and sale of 'unsafe'
drugs.
Raman Duggal, the organisation's lawyer, told the
court that Nimesulide was only permitted in suspensions of 100 mg and 50 mg per
ml. Permission was needed for any other combination but it was being sold in
deadly combinations with other drugs. 'The drug, which is prohibited for
children below three, is being used in combination in other formulations. This
is not only illegal but hazardous to health,' he said. It was only in India that
the drug was permitted for use by children.
The Union Health Ministry in an affidavit earlier
had stated that the safety of Nimesulide was being examined. The DTAB has
recommended the phasing out of Astemizole and Terfenadine within a year. The
petition wants the drug to be withdrawn immediately.
Express News
Service. HC seeks report on 'banned medicines'. The Indian Express, February 22,
2003
Distorting the doctor-patient
relationship
A doctor-client dispute snowballed into a communal
flare-up at Warud, Amravati district, with an attack by Bajrang Dal activists on
shops owned by Muslims.
Asif Pathan assaulted an Ayurvedic doctor Shailesh
Lokhande, reportedly for causing his wife to lose sight in one eye. Pathan was
beaten up by two Bajrang Dal activists who were protecting the doctor in
anticipation of a possible attack. Pathan went to the police station and had
himself arrested. Later, some doctors, joined by a 3,000-strong crowd, protested
the attack on Lokhande. Some Bajrang Dal activists also attacked property owned
by Muslims. Bajrang Dal Vidarbha chief Subodh Acharya told The Indian Express,
'Lokhande had been receiving threats for being a VHP activist from Muslims owing
allegiance to SIMI, so we had given him two bodyguards.' He admitted that his
men attacked Muslims' shops as a reaction.
Vivek Deshpande. Doc-client
rift takes a communal hue. The Indian Express, January 23,
2003
