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Apr-June 2007(2)
FROM THE PRESS
More brain mapping
We continue to track the use of dubious forensic tests in criminal investigations. Mumbai is fast becoming a centre of such testing, after Vadodara and Bangalore. At the government's forensic laboratory a suspected serial killer was subjected to "brain electrical oscillation signature", psychological profiling, polygraph and electro encephalography. "The intention ... was to find out the motive behind the killing. The Kalina lab had conducted a brain-mapping test on him before he was taken to Bangalore. These (recent) tests were just to corroborate the earlier information and tally the results," said a police officer.
Mateen Hafeez. Beer man subjected to further tests. The Times of India, Mumbai, February 22, 2007.
Illegal disposal of body parts
The bones of at least 14 human foetuses and the limbs of five adults were found buried in the compound of the Ratlam Christian Hospital in Madhya Pradesh. Under pressure from the local media and Hindu fundamentalists the hospital superintendent and a sweeper were sent to jail for burying bodies on the campus.
It is only in the past four years that norms for disposal of biomedical waste and body parts are being strictly implemented, said JM Subedhar, former president of the Indian Medical Association's Ratlam chapter, which submitted a memorandum to the district collector in support of the hospital. "Till then it was a standard practice for hospitals to leave the job to sweepers, who often carried out the burial in hospital compounds."
Milind Ghatwai. Probe hints it's no Nithari at Ratlam hospital. The Indian Express, Mumbai, February 21, 2007.
Sex selection I
The moat surrounding Bharatpur's Lohagarh fort was once known for its pure water. Today it is known as a place to dispose of female foetuses.
"Sex selective abortions are rampant here and the moat is a convenient dumping ground," said advocate Ritesh Tiwari, who specialises in cases related to the ban on sex selective tests and abortions. Rajasthan has 1,153 registered ultrasound clinics as of January 2007. Forty-six of the 86 in Jodhpur are functioning without renewing their registration. There are 25 registered ultrasound clinics in Bharatpur city, where the sex ratio is 875:1000. Fifty-five doctors were exposed in a TV channel's sting operation but cases were registered only against 29, and seven were suspended for just six months. On February 21, the Rajasthan Medical Council let off five doctors with just a warning.
Abha Khanna. Dumping ground for female foetuses. Hindustan Times, Mumbai, March 5, 2007.
Sex selection II
In the first case of its kind in the country, an audit of medical records resulted in two doctors in Madhya Pradesh being caught for violation of the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act. The chief magistrate registered a case and issued non-bailable warrants against the two. Though the PCPNDT Act stipulates that all diagnostic centres must maintain detailed records of all pregnant women undergoing scans and submit them for scrutiny, medical audits are rarely conducted.
Following a survey and the finding that the sex ratio in Shivpuri town had dropped from 905 girls per 1,000 boys in the 2001 census to 846 per 1,000, the chief medical officer ordered a scrutiny of forms submitted by ultrasound centres. "When we cross checked the ultrasounds with the results of the door-to-door survey we found clear evidence of termination of pregnancy in at least two cases," said chief medical health officer Dinesh Kaushik who filed the complaint against Dr Bhagwat Bhansal and Dr Anita Verma.
Neelam Raaj. Two MP docs held for sex tests. The Times of India, February 7, 2007.
The budget encourages clinical trials in India
Clinical trials will be exempt from service tax according to the budget of India, 2007-08, presented in Parliament on February 28. Finance minister P Chidambaram said the exemption was aimed at making India a "preferred destination" for drug testing.
PTI. Government exempts service tax on drug testing. The Economic Times, March 1, 2007. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Union_Budget_07/Govt_exempts_service_tax_on_drug_testing/articleshow/1703503.cms
The kidney trade and hospitals
Ten hospitals in Tamil Nadu, including four or five in Chennai, have come under the police scanner during the investigation of a kidney racket that targeted the tsunami-hit fishing community in north Chennai.
Special correspondent. Kidney scam: 10 hospitals under scan. Deccan Chronicle, Chennai. January 18, 2007.
The kidney trade and tsunami survivors
The Tamil Nadu health minister denied charges that the kidney racket was targeting victims of the tsunami, pointing out that 24 of the 30 cases investigated in Tsunami Nagar were pre-tsunami era donations.
Special Correspondent. Measures to control kidney donation under consideration. The Hindu, 22 January, 2007
Code of conduct for drug promotion
Drug companies will no longer sponsor doctors' foreign jaunts to exotic locations. Gifts in cash or kind are also set to end. Travel, gifts, shopping and entertainment expenses offered to doctors as part of promotional efforts will be restricted. All this is part of a code of conduct for drug promotion issued by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, which came into effect in January 2007.
Rupali Mukherjee. 'No freebies for docs' and 'Doc-rep ties tough to monitor'. The Times of India, Mumbai, January 17, 2007.
Surrogacy for sale
In Anand, Gujarat, Dr Nayana Patel offers surrogacy arrangements to meet every couple's needs. Clients from all over the world come here to interview and choose from a line-up of surrogate mothers. Once the mother is chosen, the two parties work out an arrangement and sign a stamped agreement whereby the surrogate mother relinquishes all her rights to the child in return for prenatal care and a fixed payment ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh. The delivery takes place in Dr Patel's hospital. Legislation on surrogacy drafted by the ICMR is expected to be tabled in April 2007.
Aditya Ghosh. Cradle of the world. Sunday Hindustan Times, Mumbai, December 24, 2006.
High-tech cheating
The CBI filed a charge sheet against 52 persons including a number of doctors who had used DocuPen, a sophisticated pen-size scanner, for leaking question papers of the All India post-graduate medical entrance examination conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, in early 2006. Names mentioned in the charge sheet include faculty members from the JIPMER, Pondicherry, Madras Medical College and Chennai Presidency College.
The cheating came to light when a preliminary enquiry found that 424 out of 1,006 selected candidates (and 37 of the first 100) came from Chennai. An analysis of optical mark reader sheets revealed a similarity in the pattern of answers. Investigations concluded that two candidates at two different examination centres used the DocuPen to scan question papers. "These question papers were subsequently downloaded through a laptop, prints taken and answers prepared with the help of doctors who had assembled for this purpose in Kilpauik, Chennai. The answers were sent through SMS and voice calls to the beneficiary candidates," said CBI spokesperson G Mohanty.
Vishwa Mohan. Doctors, 27 examinees charged in DocuPen case. The Times of India, Mumbai, December 29, 2006.
India subsidises health care in the US
A study of alumni of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences indicates that more than half of all students who graduated from the time it was started in 1956 to 1997 have settled abroad. Nearly 90 percent of these opted for the US.
A total of 2,129 students graduated during this period and information was available on 1,477 of them. In the first 15 years 87 per cent settled abroad. Since then, it has come down to 40-50 per cent. The US effectively receives a subsidy of Rs 25 lakh per Indian doctor, said Amit Sengupta, joint convenor of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.
Times Insight Group. Most AIIMS graduates head abroad for practice. The Times of India, Mumbai, December 30, 2006.
Hospital refuses to release patient's body
The Bombay high court reprimanded the LH Hiranandani hospital in Mumbai for refusing to hand over the body of a patient unless his family cleared the bills. Madhusudan Nawar, 54, had been admitted to LH Hiranandani Hospital when he suffered a heart attack. After he died the hospital authorities did not let his family take the body for his last rites, saying they would have to clear the bills first, Madhusudan's brother, Pramod, said in a petition. The family had paid Rs 3.3 lakh of the Rs 7.82 lakh bill.
A division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Anoop Mohta ordered the immediate release of the body and said, "How can a hospital hold lien over a body, like some property, to recover money?" It also ordered that the Medical Council of India be made respondent to the petition. "Larger issues have to be dealt with and guidelines have to be framed to deal with situations like this, where treatment is required but patients do not have the funds. Can hospitals refuse patients who do not have money?"
Special correspondent. Hospital rapped for holding on to body. The Telegraph, February 13, 2007
Catastrophic health care expenses
Many Indian families have been pushed below the poverty line because of catastrophic health care expenditure, according to a World Health Organisation survey conducted in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Researchers interviewed 10,000 families from the lower income group between 2002 and 2005 and found that over 16 per cent of them had been pushed below the poverty line, 12 per cent had to sell assets to meet health expenses, and 43.3 per cent had to borrow to meet costs.
While the average middle class family spends Rs 116.7 a month on health, the poor spend Rs 200. The biggest chunk of expenses is attributed to medicines that the poor should get free from public hospitals.
Aditya Ghosh. Medical bills make poor poorer. Hindustan Times, Mumbai, February 5, 2007.
Insurance imbroglio
The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad, ordered New India Assurance Company to pay Shaival Shah medical reimbursement of Rs 44,710 as well as Rs 5,000 for mental agony and Rs 5,000 toward costs.
The Shah family held a Mediclaim policy with the National Insurance Company from 1995 and transferred it in 2000 to New India Assurance, renewing it regularly. In 2002, Shaival was hospitalised, but when his father claimed reimbursement, New India Assurance refused on the grounds of "pre-existing disease". The company claimed that its policy was not a continuation of the previous one, but a new one, and stated that Shaival had been under treatment for epilepsy in 1999, but his father had not provided details of this, which was a breach of good faith.
Shah took the case to the Forum along with the Consumer Education and Research Society. The Forum observed that New India had not submitted any documents in support of its case that the complainant had suppressed the material fact in the proposal form.
Forum orders New India to pay minor Rs 44,710 Mediclaim. CERS press release, February 5, 2007
Compensation for mental agony
The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad, ordered the Pathology and RIA Laboratory of the Green Cross Voluntary Blood Bank, Ahmedabad, to pay Dipti Shah Rs 50,000 as compensation for the mental agony she suffered because of a misleading blood test report.
Shah was advised a CA 125 blood test for ovarian cancer. The test results from the Pathology and RIA Laboratory indicated that she might have cancer. Her gynaecologist asked for repeat tests at two other laboratories, which found the CA 125 levels normal.
Pathological laboratory penalised for deficiency in service. CERS press release, December 6, 2006
Liver donation ends in death
In January 2007, A Prameela passed away in Global Hospitals, Hyderabad, after spending 44 months in a comatose state. In April 2003 she had donated a part of her liver to her husband, A Jagannathan, who had been advised a liver transplant. Two days after the transplant, Prameela suffered a heart attack and went into a coma. Two weeks later her husband died of sepsis. The family filed a police complaint charging the hospital with negligence and filed a compensation claim with the consumer court, for which a ruling is awaited. The hospital has issued a bill of Rs 44 lakh for its services. The family had earlier paid Rs 10 lakh.
The children state that they were not clearly informed of the risks of the surgery. A Srinivas says: "They said my mother would be normal in five weeks and that my father would recover in six weeks. The doctors have to date not told us exactly why my mother suffered a heart attack". Dr K Ravindranath, MD of the hospital, said: "We are not gods. We did everything we could. The surgery was successful; his liver was functioning well enough. Sepsis affects 20 per cent of transplant patients. The drugs we gave also numb the immune system further." He added: "If not for our efforts, Prameela would not have lived so long."
No author listed. Coma victim gets Rs 44 lakh bill! The Times of India, January 11, 2007
Nurses and doctor sentenced to death
The Libyan Supreme Court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for wilfully infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV at the al-Fateh Hospital in the coastal city of Benghazi in 1998. The court also ordered the Libyan state to pay the families between US $250,000 and US $900,000 for each victim.
The nurses and doctor have been in detention since 1999 and were sentenced to death in May 2004, but in 2005 the Libyan Supreme Court ordered that the case be returned to a lower court after protests over the trial's fairness. The sentence follows an offer by Libya, which the Bulgarian government rejected, to release the prisoners in return for US$15 million compensation for each of the victims' families. Fifty-two of the 426 children have now died of HIV/AIDS.
Western human rights watchdogs and medical experts have backed the medics' case, calling for their release. Leading HIV/AIDS researchers testified on behalf of the medics at their first trial, but the judge dismissed their report. Their research indicated that the HIV virus was present in the hospital before the nurses began working there in 1998. Instead they blamed poor hospital hygiene for the infections.
Wagdy Sawahel. Death sentence for medics in Libya trial. SciDev.Net. December 19, 2006.
Plagiarism in government report
On February 19, the head of a government-commissioned committee on patent laws related to new chemical entities and micro-organisms was forced to withdraw the committee's report amidst charges of plagiarism. Public health experts and NGOs allege that parts of it are plagiarised from a report by a UK-based think tank, the Intellectual Property Institute, and say it overtly favours multinational pharmaceutical companies.
The committee's head, Raghunath Mashelkar, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, acknowledged that the report contained "technical inaccuracies".
"What is worrying is that contents of a UK study, that was partly funded by pharma firms, have been copied in a government report," says Mira Shiva, board member of Health Action International Asia Pacific.
The controversy erupted amid an ongoing court case in India in which Novartis is suing the Indian government over a patent application for an anti-cancer drug. Novartis used, among others, the Mashelkar committee report to defend its case.
TV Padma. India 'needs independent ethics body' says watchdog. Health activists allege that a report used in India's drug patent case is plagiarized. SciDev.Net. February 27, 2007
Microbicide trials stopped
Trials of a microbicidal gel to prevent HIV infection during sex have been halted in India and Africa after an independent scientific committee found that the active ingredient, cellulose sulphate, increased the risk of women contracting the virus.
Cellulose sulphate was developed as an anti-HIV microbicide by Polydex Pharmaceuticals of Toronto, Canada, and its trials were being conducted across the world by Conrad, a health-research group based in Virginia, USA. In India, the Conrad trials were being implemented by YRG Care, Chennai, and St John's Medical College, Bangalore.
Scientists are particularly surprised at the calling-off of the trial for cellulose sulphate, because it had already reached Phase III, after clearing multiple safety trials. In 2000, another microbicide on trial, nonoxynol-9, had been declared unsafe.
Anuradha Mascarenhas. India trials of anti-HIV gel halted over risk to women. The Indian Express, February 1, 2007.
We continue to track the use of dubious forensic tests in criminal investigations. Mumbai is fast becoming a centre of such testing, after Vadodara and Bangalore. At the government's forensic laboratory a suspected serial killer was subjected to "brain electrical oscillation signature", psychological profiling, polygraph and electro encephalography. "The intention ... was to find out the motive behind the killing. The Kalina lab had conducted a brain-mapping test on him before he was taken to Bangalore. These (recent) tests were just to corroborate the earlier information and tally the results," said a police officer.
Mateen Hafeez. Beer man subjected to further tests. The Times of India, Mumbai, February 22, 2007.
Illegal disposal of body parts
The bones of at least 14 human foetuses and the limbs of five adults were found buried in the compound of the Ratlam Christian Hospital in Madhya Pradesh. Under pressure from the local media and Hindu fundamentalists the hospital superintendent and a sweeper were sent to jail for burying bodies on the campus.
It is only in the past four years that norms for disposal of biomedical waste and body parts are being strictly implemented, said JM Subedhar, former president of the Indian Medical Association's Ratlam chapter, which submitted a memorandum to the district collector in support of the hospital. "Till then it was a standard practice for hospitals to leave the job to sweepers, who often carried out the burial in hospital compounds."
Milind Ghatwai. Probe hints it's no Nithari at Ratlam hospital. The Indian Express, Mumbai, February 21, 2007.
Sex selection I
The moat surrounding Bharatpur's Lohagarh fort was once known for its pure water. Today it is known as a place to dispose of female foetuses.
"Sex selective abortions are rampant here and the moat is a convenient dumping ground," said advocate Ritesh Tiwari, who specialises in cases related to the ban on sex selective tests and abortions. Rajasthan has 1,153 registered ultrasound clinics as of January 2007. Forty-six of the 86 in Jodhpur are functioning without renewing their registration. There are 25 registered ultrasound clinics in Bharatpur city, where the sex ratio is 875:1000. Fifty-five doctors were exposed in a TV channel's sting operation but cases were registered only against 29, and seven were suspended for just six months. On February 21, the Rajasthan Medical Council let off five doctors with just a warning.
Abha Khanna. Dumping ground for female foetuses. Hindustan Times, Mumbai, March 5, 2007.
Sex selection II
In the first case of its kind in the country, an audit of medical records resulted in two doctors in Madhya Pradesh being caught for violation of the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act. The chief magistrate registered a case and issued non-bailable warrants against the two. Though the PCPNDT Act stipulates that all diagnostic centres must maintain detailed records of all pregnant women undergoing scans and submit them for scrutiny, medical audits are rarely conducted.
Following a survey and the finding that the sex ratio in Shivpuri town had dropped from 905 girls per 1,000 boys in the 2001 census to 846 per 1,000, the chief medical officer ordered a scrutiny of forms submitted by ultrasound centres. "When we cross checked the ultrasounds with the results of the door-to-door survey we found clear evidence of termination of pregnancy in at least two cases," said chief medical health officer Dinesh Kaushik who filed the complaint against Dr Bhagwat Bhansal and Dr Anita Verma.
Neelam Raaj. Two MP docs held for sex tests. The Times of India, February 7, 2007.
The budget encourages clinical trials in India
Clinical trials will be exempt from service tax according to the budget of India, 2007-08, presented in Parliament on February 28. Finance minister P Chidambaram said the exemption was aimed at making India a "preferred destination" for drug testing.
PTI. Government exempts service tax on drug testing. The Economic Times, March 1, 2007. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Union_Budget_07/Govt_exempts_service_tax_on_drug_testing/articleshow/1703503.cms
The kidney trade and hospitals
Ten hospitals in Tamil Nadu, including four or five in Chennai, have come under the police scanner during the investigation of a kidney racket that targeted the tsunami-hit fishing community in north Chennai.
Special correspondent. Kidney scam: 10 hospitals under scan. Deccan Chronicle, Chennai. January 18, 2007.
The kidney trade and tsunami survivors
The Tamil Nadu health minister denied charges that the kidney racket was targeting victims of the tsunami, pointing out that 24 of the 30 cases investigated in Tsunami Nagar were pre-tsunami era donations.
Special Correspondent. Measures to control kidney donation under consideration. The Hindu, 22 January, 2007
Code of conduct for drug promotion
Drug companies will no longer sponsor doctors' foreign jaunts to exotic locations. Gifts in cash or kind are also set to end. Travel, gifts, shopping and entertainment expenses offered to doctors as part of promotional efforts will be restricted. All this is part of a code of conduct for drug promotion issued by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, which came into effect in January 2007.
Rupali Mukherjee. 'No freebies for docs' and 'Doc-rep ties tough to monitor'. The Times of India, Mumbai, January 17, 2007.
Surrogacy for sale
In Anand, Gujarat, Dr Nayana Patel offers surrogacy arrangements to meet every couple's needs. Clients from all over the world come here to interview and choose from a line-up of surrogate mothers. Once the mother is chosen, the two parties work out an arrangement and sign a stamped agreement whereby the surrogate mother relinquishes all her rights to the child in return for prenatal care and a fixed payment ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh. The delivery takes place in Dr Patel's hospital. Legislation on surrogacy drafted by the ICMR is expected to be tabled in April 2007.
Aditya Ghosh. Cradle of the world. Sunday Hindustan Times, Mumbai, December 24, 2006.
High-tech cheating
The CBI filed a charge sheet against 52 persons including a number of doctors who had used DocuPen, a sophisticated pen-size scanner, for leaking question papers of the All India post-graduate medical entrance examination conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, in early 2006. Names mentioned in the charge sheet include faculty members from the JIPMER, Pondicherry, Madras Medical College and Chennai Presidency College.
The cheating came to light when a preliminary enquiry found that 424 out of 1,006 selected candidates (and 37 of the first 100) came from Chennai. An analysis of optical mark reader sheets revealed a similarity in the pattern of answers. Investigations concluded that two candidates at two different examination centres used the DocuPen to scan question papers. "These question papers were subsequently downloaded through a laptop, prints taken and answers prepared with the help of doctors who had assembled for this purpose in Kilpauik, Chennai. The answers were sent through SMS and voice calls to the beneficiary candidates," said CBI spokesperson G Mohanty.
Vishwa Mohan. Doctors, 27 examinees charged in DocuPen case. The Times of India, Mumbai, December 29, 2006.
India subsidises health care in the US
A study of alumni of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences indicates that more than half of all students who graduated from the time it was started in 1956 to 1997 have settled abroad. Nearly 90 percent of these opted for the US.
A total of 2,129 students graduated during this period and information was available on 1,477 of them. In the first 15 years 87 per cent settled abroad. Since then, it has come down to 40-50 per cent. The US effectively receives a subsidy of Rs 25 lakh per Indian doctor, said Amit Sengupta, joint convenor of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.
Times Insight Group. Most AIIMS graduates head abroad for practice. The Times of India, Mumbai, December 30, 2006.
Hospital refuses to release patient's body
The Bombay high court reprimanded the LH Hiranandani hospital in Mumbai for refusing to hand over the body of a patient unless his family cleared the bills. Madhusudan Nawar, 54, had been admitted to LH Hiranandani Hospital when he suffered a heart attack. After he died the hospital authorities did not let his family take the body for his last rites, saying they would have to clear the bills first, Madhusudan's brother, Pramod, said in a petition. The family had paid Rs 3.3 lakh of the Rs 7.82 lakh bill.
A division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Anoop Mohta ordered the immediate release of the body and said, "How can a hospital hold lien over a body, like some property, to recover money?" It also ordered that the Medical Council of India be made respondent to the petition. "Larger issues have to be dealt with and guidelines have to be framed to deal with situations like this, where treatment is required but patients do not have the funds. Can hospitals refuse patients who do not have money?"
Special correspondent. Hospital rapped for holding on to body. The Telegraph, February 13, 2007
Catastrophic health care expenses
Many Indian families have been pushed below the poverty line because of catastrophic health care expenditure, according to a World Health Organisation survey conducted in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Researchers interviewed 10,000 families from the lower income group between 2002 and 2005 and found that over 16 per cent of them had been pushed below the poverty line, 12 per cent had to sell assets to meet health expenses, and 43.3 per cent had to borrow to meet costs.
While the average middle class family spends Rs 116.7 a month on health, the poor spend Rs 200. The biggest chunk of expenses is attributed to medicines that the poor should get free from public hospitals.
Aditya Ghosh. Medical bills make poor poorer. Hindustan Times, Mumbai, February 5, 2007.
Insurance imbroglio
The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad, ordered New India Assurance Company to pay Shaival Shah medical reimbursement of Rs 44,710 as well as Rs 5,000 for mental agony and Rs 5,000 toward costs.
The Shah family held a Mediclaim policy with the National Insurance Company from 1995 and transferred it in 2000 to New India Assurance, renewing it regularly. In 2002, Shaival was hospitalised, but when his father claimed reimbursement, New India Assurance refused on the grounds of "pre-existing disease". The company claimed that its policy was not a continuation of the previous one, but a new one, and stated that Shaival had been under treatment for epilepsy in 1999, but his father had not provided details of this, which was a breach of good faith.
Shah took the case to the Forum along with the Consumer Education and Research Society. The Forum observed that New India had not submitted any documents in support of its case that the complainant had suppressed the material fact in the proposal form.
Forum orders New India to pay minor Rs 44,710 Mediclaim. CERS press release, February 5, 2007
Compensation for mental agony
The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad, ordered the Pathology and RIA Laboratory of the Green Cross Voluntary Blood Bank, Ahmedabad, to pay Dipti Shah Rs 50,000 as compensation for the mental agony she suffered because of a misleading blood test report.
Shah was advised a CA 125 blood test for ovarian cancer. The test results from the Pathology and RIA Laboratory indicated that she might have cancer. Her gynaecologist asked for repeat tests at two other laboratories, which found the CA 125 levels normal.
Pathological laboratory penalised for deficiency in service. CERS press release, December 6, 2006
Liver donation ends in death
In January 2007, A Prameela passed away in Global Hospitals, Hyderabad, after spending 44 months in a comatose state. In April 2003 she had donated a part of her liver to her husband, A Jagannathan, who had been advised a liver transplant. Two days after the transplant, Prameela suffered a heart attack and went into a coma. Two weeks later her husband died of sepsis. The family filed a police complaint charging the hospital with negligence and filed a compensation claim with the consumer court, for which a ruling is awaited. The hospital has issued a bill of Rs 44 lakh for its services. The family had earlier paid Rs 10 lakh.
The children state that they were not clearly informed of the risks of the surgery. A Srinivas says: "They said my mother would be normal in five weeks and that my father would recover in six weeks. The doctors have to date not told us exactly why my mother suffered a heart attack". Dr K Ravindranath, MD of the hospital, said: "We are not gods. We did everything we could. The surgery was successful; his liver was functioning well enough. Sepsis affects 20 per cent of transplant patients. The drugs we gave also numb the immune system further." He added: "If not for our efforts, Prameela would not have lived so long."
No author listed. Coma victim gets Rs 44 lakh bill! The Times of India, January 11, 2007
Nurses and doctor sentenced to death
The Libyan Supreme Court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for wilfully infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV at the al-Fateh Hospital in the coastal city of Benghazi in 1998. The court also ordered the Libyan state to pay the families between US $250,000 and US $900,000 for each victim.
The nurses and doctor have been in detention since 1999 and were sentenced to death in May 2004, but in 2005 the Libyan Supreme Court ordered that the case be returned to a lower court after protests over the trial's fairness. The sentence follows an offer by Libya, which the Bulgarian government rejected, to release the prisoners in return for US$15 million compensation for each of the victims' families. Fifty-two of the 426 children have now died of HIV/AIDS.
Western human rights watchdogs and medical experts have backed the medics' case, calling for their release. Leading HIV/AIDS researchers testified on behalf of the medics at their first trial, but the judge dismissed their report. Their research indicated that the HIV virus was present in the hospital before the nurses began working there in 1998. Instead they blamed poor hospital hygiene for the infections.
Wagdy Sawahel. Death sentence for medics in Libya trial. SciDev.Net. December 19, 2006.
Plagiarism in government report
On February 19, the head of a government-commissioned committee on patent laws related to new chemical entities and micro-organisms was forced to withdraw the committee's report amidst charges of plagiarism. Public health experts and NGOs allege that parts of it are plagiarised from a report by a UK-based think tank, the Intellectual Property Institute, and say it overtly favours multinational pharmaceutical companies.
The committee's head, Raghunath Mashelkar, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, acknowledged that the report contained "technical inaccuracies".
"What is worrying is that contents of a UK study, that was partly funded by pharma firms, have been copied in a government report," says Mira Shiva, board member of Health Action International Asia Pacific.
The controversy erupted amid an ongoing court case in India in which Novartis is suing the Indian government over a patent application for an anti-cancer drug. Novartis used, among others, the Mashelkar committee report to defend its case.
TV Padma. India 'needs independent ethics body' says watchdog. Health activists allege that a report used in India's drug patent case is plagiarized. SciDev.Net. February 27, 2007
Microbicide trials stopped
Trials of a microbicidal gel to prevent HIV infection during sex have been halted in India and Africa after an independent scientific committee found that the active ingredient, cellulose sulphate, increased the risk of women contracting the virus.
Cellulose sulphate was developed as an anti-HIV microbicide by Polydex Pharmaceuticals of Toronto, Canada, and its trials were being conducted across the world by Conrad, a health-research group based in Virginia, USA. In India, the Conrad trials were being implemented by YRG Care, Chennai, and St John's Medical College, Bangalore.
Scientists are particularly surprised at the calling-off of the trial for cellulose sulphate, because it had already reached Phase III, after clearing multiple safety trials. In 2000, another microbicide on trial, nonoxynol-9, had been declared unsafe.
Anuradha Mascarenhas. India trials of anti-HIV gel halted over risk to women. The Indian Express, February 1, 2007.