Health Impact News Editor Comments: The lucrative pharmaceutical industry has always needed a willing testing ground to develop their drugs, and India is usually the country of choice where poor people willingly participate in drug trials for financial incentives. This booming business of drug trials in India has resulted in both many injured and dead people during the trials, as well as questionable drugs reaching the U.S. market as a result of these trials.
Last year Dateline NBC News conducted an exhaustive investigation on the drug approval process for U.S. drug makers, including examining these drug trials in India. To test the drug approval process, they setup a fictitious medical company and then put together a plan to conduct drug trials on a drug that was identical to Merck’s Vioxx. Vioxx is now banned world-wide after causing an estimated 60,000 deaths, in what was possibly the most dangerous drug to ever make it to the market. Could such a dangerous drug be approved again by using drug trials in India? Dateline proved that indeed it can. Watch the astounding report here: Are FDA Approved Drugs Safe? Don’t Bet Your Life On It!
Unfortunately, the people in India used as guinea pigs to get these drugs approved are seldom compensated for their loss.
Only 45 of 2,868 clinical trial deaths compensated since 2005
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
With as many as 2,868 deaths during clinical trials from 2005 to 2012, only 89 have been attributed directly to such trials and compensation paid only in 45 cases so far, the Rajya Sabha was today informed.
Last year, 436 people died during clinical trials but only 16 of these were attributed directly to the trials.
Compensation was paid in only two of the 16 cases. While Novartis gave Rs 2.5 lakh in one case, Sun paid Rs 50,000 as interim payment in the other, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said in a written reply.
In a bid to regulate the booming clinical trial industry, the government had earlier this month set up four committees to monitor and ensure accountability during the tests that have seen 2,242 deaths in past five years. So far, there is no procedure in place to ensure accountability of this hitherto unregulated sector which is worth USD 500 million in India.
Read the Full Article Here: http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/only-45-of-2-868-clinical-trial-deaths-compensated-since-2005-113030500403_1.html