======================== (http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_537580,0008.htm) Hindustan Times -- Sunday January 18 2004 Illegal tests done on 790 Indian women Dinesh C Sharma New Delhi, January 17
Indian women have once again been used as guinea pigs. Between August 1999 and October 2002, as many as 790 healthy women in West Bengal were illegally administered the antibiotic erythromycin to test whether it would work as a contraceptive. The tests were backed by a US outfit. Erythromycin is normally taken orally to treat respiratory tract infections like bronchitis. But the women were administered the drug as a trans-cervical contraceptive � pellets of the drug were administered using intra-uterine devices such as copper-T. This was done at two private clinics in Kolkata and South 24 Parganas. The two doctors involved in the trials are repeat offenders. Netai R. Bairagi and Biral Chand Mullick were also involved in the illegal trials of the anti-malarial drug quinacrine as a chemical sterilisation method in the mid-nineties. The drug was banned in India in 1998, following the Supreme Court�s intervention. The two doctors then began testing erythromycin on women. The two have now revealed that they tested even tetracycline, another antibiotic, as a trans-cervical contraceptive in the mid-eighties. Medical experts are shocked. �This is illegal, unethical and amounts to violation of human rights and the right to life,� says one. Bairagi and Mullick say the tests have failed but argue that the drug �appears to be safe�. But then why did they force the women to sign consent forms that stated �in the opinion of the investigator the method was safe but its efficacy was unknown�? The only animal study cited by the doctors was done in rats by an American doctor working for the US-based Family Health International, which promotes sterilisation by drugs like quinacrine and erythromycin. The quinacrine trials were funded by American doctors Stephen Mumford and Elton Kessel. The contact details in the paper published by Bairagi and Mullick gives Mumford�s phone and fax numbers in the US. Contraception blues � Tests: Erythromycin, an antibiotic, was used as contraceptive in women � Results: Two Kolkata docs who did tests say trials failed. Women became pregnant despite monthly doses � Violation: No permission taken for trials. Nor was protocol of testing in animals and humans followed ------------------------------------------------ visit http://www.geocities.com/sapacchicago email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe sapac" in msg body to unsubscribe
