The Hindu: Bhopal: Wednesday,
March 27, 2013.
CIC
orders disclosure on drug trials in ‘larger public interest’
The Central
Information Commission (CIC) has ordered the Bhopal Memorial Hospital &
Research Center (BMHRC), a government body, to disclose information related to
drug trials on victims of the 1984 gas tragedy to safeguard “larger public
interest.”
The CIC
criticised the BMHRC for not initiating the process of collecting testimonies
from the “poor, helpless victims,” even after it issued an order. Rachna
Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA) had moved the
commission.
Talking to The
Hindu, Rachna Dhingra, who has been working with the gas victims, levelled a
series of allegations against the hospital. “BMHRC was built to provide free
medical care to the gas victims but they started testing [victims] as guinea
pigs at the behest of multinational pharmaceutical corporations. As many as 15
trials and 13 deaths in 3 trials have taken place and no action was initiated
against the BMHRC doctors, management or pharma companies,” Ms. Dhingra
charged.
According to
the commission’s initial notice, information was sought on the identity of the
persons on whom different drugs were tested from 2000 to 2011; how much funds
were received for the trials and the names of the companies which commissioned
them; the names of the drugs, the number of patients involved and the number
who died; and the minutes of the meetings which approved the trials.
On the basis
of Ms. Dhingra’s RTI application, the commission asked the hospital to furnish
details within a month which it did not. The hospital said the drug trials were
conducted on private individuals and “disclosure of identity of these would
compromise their privacy,” which is not permitted under the RTI Act. This
argument annoyed the commission as it had instructed the BMHRC to “issue notice
to any 25 patients at random on whom drugs were tried” to obtain “their consent
for disclosure of their names” as per law.
Central
Information Commissioner M.L. Sharma wrote that even if the patients did not
agree to disclose information, “it is still open to this Commission to order
disclosure.”
“Given the
fact that a number of drugs manufactured by foreign/Indian companies were tried
on these poor, helpless victims of the gas tragedy, I am of the opinion it
would be in the larger public interest to disclose the requested information,”
said Mr. Sharma in his order.
Chief Public
Relations Officer of BMHRC Mazhar Ullah has been given six weeks’ time to
“comply” with the order. Mr. Ullah said that he cannot comment till he received
a copy.
Meanwhile,
Ms. Dhingra has submitted papers to The Hindu that shows, as on 13.08.2010 the
hospital conducted at least 10 drug trials and received an amount of
1,008,5100.
“We have
proof that 15 trials were conducted and the money for the other trials are not
accounted for,” she said.
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