Rs 3 lakh – that's the price a pharmaceutical company has paid to the family of a person who died in their clinical trial. Others weren't even this lucky. According to the Drug Controller General of India's (DCGI) records, 25 people died in clinical trials carried out by nine pharmaceutical companies in 2010. Families of five of these victims received "compensation for trial related death" — the amount ranging from Rs...

It will wait for the findings of its own study before reaching final conclusion ICMR argues that findings can't be extrapolated on Indian population A study by Jawaharlal Nehru University has found impact on male fertility A day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of the possibility of mobile phone handsets causing cancer, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Thursday that there was “no reason to panic” as a...

After a government report confirmed major ethical violations in trials of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccines on Indian schoolgirls, senior doctors are calling for transparency in clinical trials conducted under private-public partnerships. The report is yet to be placed in the public domain, but its contents were revealed early May by senior doctors who assisted in its preparation, sparking outrage among public health advocates and women’s rights groups. HPV is an umbrella...

It is the improper mode of application, violating the law and regulations, that is responsible for the apparent adverse toxic effects of endosulfan. FROM a scientific perspective, an extremely pertinent question in the endosulfan story is why adverse health effects similar to those seen in the villages of Kasaragod district in Kerala have not been reported from other parts of the country where the pesticide is used in much larger...

‘Human life is the paramount consideration' Observing that Right to life is a paramount consideration, the Supreme Court on Friday banned the manufacture, sale and use of pesticide endosulfan in the country for eight weeks. A three-Judge Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI)S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar, in a brief order, said: “Keeping in mind various judgments of this court under Article 21 [right to life and...