Clinical Drug Trials: Doctors' role under scanner in Madhya Pradesh

The role of a number of doctors in Madhya Pradesh has come under scanner for testing drugs on patients as part of Multi National Companies' (MNCs) clinical drug trials.

The strength and effects of the medicines were tested on poor patients without their consent and knowledge. In Indore and Bhopal, doctors in many private and government hospitals conducted these trials that are illegal and unethical.

Drug manufacturers who don't easily get consenting patients and volunteers in other countries are offering huge sums to the doctors in India. As a result patients who are unaware fell victim to these nefarious designs and often suffer horrifiying medical complications that can even lead to deaths.

A complaint has been made against six doctors in Indore. NGO Swasth Samarthan Sewa Samiti has lodged its complaint with the government. But the number of doctors involved in the unethical practice is estimated to number around 100.

The doctors have been getting crores for such trials and the money is deposited directly in their accounts. It is not known how many children and under-age persons have been put to such tests and the after-effects of such trials on them.

Now the issue has reached the police. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and Lokayukta are now initiating inquiry. Some MLAs have also raised the issue in the current Assembly session  but the real question is whether the guilty would be punished?

Indore's Maharaja Yashwant Rao (MY) Hospital is at the centre of the controversy as most trials have been conducted in this hospital which is attached to the MGM medical college. There are reports from other colleges and hospitals in MP also.

Doctors who have brought bad name to the noble profession and compromised on the health of patients, including vulnerable children, must not be allowed to go unpunished for violating government guidelines and keeping everybody in dark to mint money.

Dirty journalism: Dainik Bhaskar brands Kashmiris as 'terrorist'

Journalism is considered a noble profession but the media loses respect of society when it thrives on sensation to create reports that cause panic in the society.

Dainik Bhaskar, a mass circulated daily, began with publishing a series of stories by reporter Siddharth Machhiwal on large number of Kashmiri students studying in Bhopal. But the series soon acquired communal overtones and was clevery worded to sound alarm about all Kashmiri students.

For a community that finds it tough to get a rented home, it could be disastrous. First, the story pointed at the manner in which police take money for verification of students. This was a proper story and it is true everywhere as even passport seekers would tell that often policemen ask for bribe for verification.

But soon the story turned into a communal propaganda. It demonised Kashmiris on the premise that students who are admitted in Bhopal's Hamidia College and other educational institutions could be 'involved in throwing stones' in the recent Kashmir violence.

It further went on to suggest that under the garb of Kashmiri students, terrorists could also sneak in. Further, rather than putting onus on corruption, it branded Kashmiri youths with assumptions like 'a youth who got a bullet injury could be a student of college'.

Without any names or quotes, the report suggests that 'stone-pelters' are terrorists and that one of the stone-pelter was studying in Bhopal's Hamidia College. But whom? By getting ABVP to support its agenda, the report further lost its credibility. ABVP activists or NSUI activists are also involved in bandhs and protests all over India, so how come a protestor becomes a terrorist? In fact, we don't know yet if there was a youth involved in stone pelting either. But all Kashmiri students in Bhopal are now branded as terrorists!

Read the cleverly worded but vague sentences from the report:
1....aashanka hai ki Kashmiri mein jaari hinsaa mein Hamidia college ke sandigdh chhatron ki bhumika ho sakti hai..
2....ek praadhyakapak ne naam na bataane ki shart par bataaya ki voh chhatr Hamidia ka hi hai

When the need is to integrate the Kashmiri youths and take pride in the fact that Madhya Pradesh is lending a helping hand to Kashmiri youths and letting them study, the story veered off with falsehoods and unsubstantiated charges to take a fasicstic tone. By equating Kashmiri students with terrorism, the newspaper lost its credibility once again.

It is unfortunate that while Agarwals intends to take their newspaper to the national level and have been working hard to get it a progressive and credible face of Hindi media, its editorial seems to have lost something that is vital for any media group--Credibility.

MP Minister facing murder charges resigns

State Health Minister Anup Mishra who is at the centre of controversy involving a youth's murder in Belgaon near Gwalior, resigned on Friday. His resignation was accepted.

Mishra, who is relative of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was under intense pressure after his son and other relatives were booked in the case of murder of Bhikam Kushwaha. It was alleged that Mishra's relatives were forcing villagers to leave the land for extending his college.

BJP leaders had stepped up the pressure. Party leaders including its president Nitin Gadkari and Anant Kumar had hinted that tainted ministers should be dropped for improving the image of the party. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after getting the resignation letter forwarded it to Governor.