TRIVANDRUM, 8 May — Sustained pressure by an NGO against controversial drug trials that were conducted at the Regional Cancer Center (RCC) here has prompted the Kerala state government to order a fresh inquiry into the issue.
Confirming that the state’s Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau had begun its probe, an official of the chief minister’s office said: "This to my knowledge is based on a petition by (NGO) Prathikarana Vedi." "Yes, our Secretary K. Sumedhan has already appeared before the vigilance officials," an official of the NGO told said.
The investigations are believed to have begun 10 days ago but information about it was made known only yesterday. The inquiry comes after a one-man commission headed by Purvesh M. Parikh of the Tata Memorial Cancer Center, Bombay, had cleared RCC Director M. Krishnan Nair of any wrong-doing.
The state government, after sitting on Parikh’s report for close to six months, accepted it in February.
Two other probes are also under way into the affairs of the RCC — by the Petitions Committee of the Kerala Assembly and the state Human Rights Commission.
The scandal surfaced almost a year ago when V.N. Bhattathiri of the RCC complained to the Human Rights Commission that illegal drug trials were being conducted on 26 cancer patients without their consent.
Said V.P. Gangadharan, also of the RCC, who along with Bhattathiri had spilled the beans about the controversial trials: "I have been asked by the vigilance officials to meet them Wednesday."
Interestingly, even as the state government gave a clean chit to the RCC, it awarded M. Sanalkumar a reporter of Surya TV, for exposing the scandal. Sanalkumar was named the best reporter from the electronic media for the year 2001 in the awards list that was announced last Friday.
