Panel inquest over, to submit report today

Hyderabad: The three-member panel appointed by the Health department to probe the allegations of illegal clinical trials in Niloufer Hospital completed its task on Monday.

The panel comprising Dr Raja Rao (Gandhi Medical College), Prof Vimala Thomas (Osmania Medical College) and Prof Lakshmi Kameshwari (Government Medical College, Nizamabad) visited the hospital and went through the records and documents, besides gathering explanations and views from doctors.

They spoke to Superintendent Dr Muralikrishna and Paediatrics HoD Dr Ravi Kumar and collected necessary information on the

subject.

According to sources, one of the volunteers, a woman, who came forward for the clinical trials, turned up before the panel and put her point of view. The committee members are learnt to have taken phone numbers of other volunteers and spoke to them over phone to take their views.

According to sources, Niloufer doctors told the panel that they were doing clinical trials of only vaccines and not any drugs. Also, the vaccines are presently available in the market and these trials were pertaining to manufacturing of the same vaccine by other pharmaceutical companies.

This statement is likely to open a new controversy as to how can they take up tests on behalf of the pharma companies. Before releasing the vaccines into the market and after that also the companies have to take up the research work.

Even if they ask hospitals to do so there are certain rules to be followed. The big question that remains unanswered is whether the rules were followed or not. It is not known if the three-member committee had focussed on this issue or not.

The panel took copies of records from the hospital before leaving the hospital. Health department sources said that the committee completed its probe into Niloufer incidents. They will be going through the records and related data after which the report would be submitted.

The committee also collected information from the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Osmania Medical College that gave permission to the Niloufer Hospital to go ahead with clinical trials.

Director of Medical Education Dr K Ramesh Reddy told The Hans India that the government-appointed panel would be submitting its report to the DME office on Tuesday. It will then be submitted to Special Chief Secretary Shanti Kumari, he said.