Probe ignores human cost of illegal trials
Ahmedabad: How did doctors manage to pocket money from the
illegal clinical trials
without the civic body's knowledge? That will be the focus of the five-member committee formed by
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
(AMC) to investigate the scandal at VS Hospital, and not how the civic-run hospital turned into a lab where gullible and mainly poor patients were treated as guinea pigs.
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It is suspected that 10 doctors allegedly pocketed a total of Rs 20 crore during the 58 trials conducted between 2021 and 2024, sources close to the development said.
Amid the swirling scandal, AMC officials, surprisingly, have refrained from commenting on whether a separate committee will be constituted to probe the trial documents, but have confirmed AMC is looking into the money trail of crores of rupees into the bank accounts of former superintendent Dr Manish Patel and associate professor Dr Devang Rana and how it lost out on the crores of rupees, sources said.
The probe completely overlooks whether the trials were legal under regulations laid down by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) under the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and if protocols were followed, they added.
"The superintendent of VS Hospital has officially emailed the CDSCO and DCGI informing them about the 58 clinical trials conducted between 2021 and 2024," a senior AMC official, requesting anonymity, said.
He added that the five-member committee will only investigate which officials or doctors received the funds during these trials.
"We (AMC) cannot verify if the trials followed the correct protocols and were legal. Investigating that will require medical experts, which is beyond our scope.
Therefore, our committee will only investigate the money trail," he added.
VS Hospital did not have an ethics committee, but SVP Hospital, which is on the same campus, had one.
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Yet, private pharmaceutical companies conducted 58 trials at VS Hospital over four years, suggesting not just financial irregularities, but also potential misconduct to complete the trials within the time stipulated by the pharmaceutical companies. In its Thursday report, TOI had quoted insiders who said that irregularities will surface if documents and patient consent for all 58 trials are scrutinized.
In Jan 2019, AMC established SVP Hospital on VS Hospital's premises.
Senior doctors from VS Hospital were gradually transferred to SVP Hospital.
When the pandemic struck in 2020, VS Hospital was designated as a Covid hospital. "However, after 2021, only 500 beds were operational at VS Hospital, and due to a lack of senior doctors, most of the beds remained vacant. It was during this time that illegal clinical trials began," the source said.
There are also doubts if the trials even adhered to
Drugs Controller General of India
guidelines.
"That's why all documents are being concealed. If all records, including patient names, are investigated, irregularities in all clinical trials may be revealed," the official said.
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