Bhopal groups accuse docs of malpractice

Bhopal, Feb 10 (IBNS): Five organisations campaigning for justice for the 1984 Bhopal disaster on Thursday demanded for filing of criminal charges against doctors allegedly responsible for causing deaths of gas victims through unethical drug trials.

Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha, Children Against Dow Carbide and Bhopal Group for Information and Action called for immediate suspension of senior consultants of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital who are said to have caused the deaths of at least 10 gas victims by unethical drug trials.?

According to the information obtained by these organisations, three gas victims died due to the trial of the drug Televancin on them, five died due to the drug Fondaparinux and two?due to the drug called Tigecycline.

Documents obtained by these organizations through the Right to Information Act show the consultants S K Trivedi and H K Pande in the cardiology department and Dr Subodh Varshney in the Gastro Surgery department of Bhopal Memorial Hospital (BMHRC) as the prime accused for the deaths.

The organisations also said the Institutional Review Board of BMHRC whose Secretary is S K Trivedi?s wife, had approved these trials.

The organizations further asserted that the Madhya Pradesh government initiated an investigation on the unethical trials in BMHRC but the report of this investigation still remains to be made public.?

On the intervening night of Dec. 2-3, 1984, the inhabitants of the city of Bhopal became victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster.?

40 tonnes of the toxic chemical methyl iscocyanate stored at the pesticide plant – owned by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA – was contaminated with water and other impurities.