What has come to light at the RCC hospital in Kerala is just the tip of the iceberg : A banned cancer drug utilised on poverty stricken illeterate patients after getting their thumb impression on declarations they could not read.

The drug involved is the NDGA (Non Dihydro Ganretic Acid) which has been banned by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) of America. The sponsors are the ‘renowned’ institute, the John Hopkins University. Their Indian agents is the prestigious teaching hospital of Kerala, the Regional Cancer Centre. The period in which the trial were conducted were Nov. 1999 to Apr. 2000. The director of the RCC, Nair, and chief agent of Hopkins, was awarded the Padmashree last year. The chairman of the governing body of the RCC is the Chief Minister of Kerala; at that time under CPM rule. The present Congress (I) Government is actively involved in trying to supress all information from coming out. The inquiry officer appointed to investigate the affair, one Dr. Parikh, is a stooge of the very director himself.

The entire operation has been a cloak-and-daggar affair conducted in utmost secrecy, unknow even to the doctors of the hospital, except for those directly involved in the experiments. The money that comes from Hopkins does not go to the institution, but to a so-called "project cell". The annual accounts of the RCC, for the year 2000, showed an income from foreign projects at an absurd Rs 600. The actual funds are handled exclusively by the principal investigator for the project. There is no accountability whatsoever, either to the government or any monitoring agency -- only to John Hopkins. It was only when one doctor. Bhattathiri, head of the department of Radiobiology, stumbled on some papers, did the murky goings-on come to light.

At first John Hopkins denied any assocation with the research. When it came to light that they were funding Rs. 25 lakhs annually for it, they accepted their involvement and said they would investigate. In fact, it had been planned that the amount from Hopkins couled be raised to Rs. 1.5 crore annually. What has raised even more doubts is that the JHU, at the last moment, cancelled its investigative trip to the RCC. When Bhattathiri raised the issue with the RCC authorities, he was ignored. It was only after he approached the Human Rights Commission did the affair come to light.

The modus operandi of the doctors was simple. The would lie in wait for illiterate poverty-striken patients with maligrant tumours. The NGDA durg is said to reduce to growth of cancerous cells, which if effective, could do away with the need for an operation. But the doctors, before operation of the tumour, would inject the drug and then remove the tunour to investigate the effect on it. Often surgery was delayed in order to administer the drug.

In all 27 patietns were administered the drugs, and as per the deal with Hopkins, the RCC was to get institutions in Kanpur, Benaras and Jaipur to conduct similar experiments.

What has come to light here is only the tip of the iceberg. The RCC (as well as other medical colleges in Kerala) are intangled with numerous multinational-driven projects. And the all these financial tie-ups between academic institutions like the RCC and foreign drug companies are done the utmost secrecy. But this is not restricted to Kereal alone. With strict controls in the US and EU, these countries are using India in a big way for their human clinical trials. What test are conducted on mice in the US are done on humans in India.

Then there is the much publicised "miracle" drug being tested on hundreds of cancer patients in Kolkota and Pune by the IACS (Indian Association for the Cultivations of Scince). The drug Methylglyoxal, sold by the US corporation, Sigma Medical Company, the IACS for research. Though officailly it states that the chemical is strictly not for medical use, they are being administered to cancer patients as part of its experimentation.

The recent disclosure of US institutes granting permission to too research bodies (one linked to Reliance, the other government own) for stem-cell research, whith involves the human embryo, is also clouded in mystry. The governments must openly state how many (and for how long) have abortion clinics been used for these experiments!!

That the TNCs are inhuman monstors is well know. What is more criminal is that the Indain rulers are willing to trade our people’s lives for a few dollars. All those involved in the RCC affair, doctors and politicians, should be publicly flogged.