By TCN News,
Indore: The Swasthya Adhikar Manch, Indore has declared that the recommendations, given by the Committee [six membered] formed under the presidentship of the Chief Secretary of Medical education for setting up rules on clinical drug trial, as unacceptable. The commission on its recommendations for setting up rules on clinical drug trial had said that, “there should not be any ban on clinical drug trial in the state”. The Swasthya Adhikar Manch in its report told that this is equal to the ban on clinical trial, prevalent since 25th Oct 2010. They called it an illegal act because, it shows that there is no accountability for the state in such further incidents.
They made it clear that, “the recommendation was called illegal because the guidelines issued to the Committee didn’t have any expectation of such recommendation from it, nor the Committee was expected to give its recommendation for legalizing the drug trials occurring in the state. In this way the Committee has violated the guidelines indicating its scope”.
“The Health Minister said it clearly in the Legislative Assembly that the state governments have no right in the above subject; and therefore, it is unable to take any action. The Committee also accepted/considered in its report that the Law Department of the Madhya Pradesh Government has clearly mentioned to them, that according to Section 33 N of the Drug and Cosmetic Law of 1940 only the Central Government has the authority to make rules under this law.
Therefore, the purpose of forming the Committee, that is, the work of setting up rules with regard to Clinical Drug Trial doesn’t even come under the jurisdiction of the state government. Moreover, most of the recommendations made by the Committee are already available in the present law. Therefore, any guidelines issued by the Committee must be considered as violation of the Central Law”, they said.
The wide civil unrest rose against the illegal clinical drug trials in Madhya Pradesh, was intended at bringing the guilty doctors and officers in front of law and they want them to get punished. Even the Economic Research Wing [ERW] of the state has clearly pointed out in its report about the wrong doings of the doctors and their illegal involvement in drug trial, which requires serious attention.
They accused the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government for unclear stand which, on one hand, decided to send the report to the Central Government expecting that it would take some action on the guilty doctors but on the other hand trying to implement the recommendations of the committee through the backdoor.
The Swasthya Adhikar Manch pointed out that, on 13 July 2011, the State Health Minister; Mr Mohinder Hardia had assured the state legislative assembly that a committee would be constituted to investigate all irregularities and deaths which occurred during drug trials. Five months have passed by since then, but no such committee has been constituted and in an attempt to save the culprits the State Government is trying to shield itself behind the recommendations of this committee.
Swasthya Adhikar Manch, the other civil society organisations and groups strongly expressed their feel and appealed to the State Government, that they should not be paying much attention to the committee report as it is in no way a legally constituted body. The Swatshya Adhikar Manch had made a formal complaint to the Prime Minister based on the report of the ERW, and the PM’s office in turn had directed the Chief Secretary of the State to take appropriate action.
Chinmoy Mishra and Amulya Nidhi of the Swasthya Adhikar Manch said that they don’t want to comment on the merits of recommendations of the committee; because they strongly demand that the MP Government should at first dismiss all the doctors who have been found guilty of conducting illegal trials.