Poverty and Illiteracy: Reasons Why India Is Conned Into Clinical Trials


So, the family is fighting a legal battle by filing a petition in Supreme Court charging against a Japan-based pharmaceutical company for a drug that was tested upon Pathak unknowingly. As such, Pathak is left affected permanently with dementia.

Since 2004, Madhya Pradesh has been at the centre of the trial scandal where doctors were charged of using even the victims of 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy without their permission for clinical trials. Out of which, 14 people were believed to lose their lives because of the trials.

This illegal task of testing drugs on man is mostly conducted by Indian and multinational pharmaceutical companies who outsource the work to unregulated research organizations.

Conducting clinical trials of drugs is a compulsory step for the pharma companies to launch the drugs in the market. It also must prove to the concerned authorities that the trials do not show any ill effects or after effects.