The Hindu : National : Assam bans vaccine trials

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Friday, Mar 07, 2008
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Assam bans vaccine trials

Sushanta Talukdar

Guwahati: The Assam government on Thursday banned clinical trials on humans of a genetically engineered vaccine developed by Dhaniram Baruah, a cardiac surgeon from the State. He claimed that the vaccine corrected genetic defects causing heart diseases and diabetes and even prevented cancer.

Dr. Baruah was jailed by the State government in 1997 following the death of patient on whom he had carried out a transplantation of a pig’s heart. The operation took place at his institute, the Dr. Baurah Heart City located at Sonapur, 20 km from here. He was released the same year.

State Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma told the Assam Assembly that the State government would ask Dr. Baruah not to carry out further clinical trials of the vaccine without first obtaining a licence for it.

The Minister said the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Drug and Magic Remedies Act, 1955 stipulated that after the successful clinical trial of any new drug on animals, one had to take the permission of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization for carrying out clinical trials on two humans after obtaining their consent. If the test on the two was successful then fresh permission had to be taken for conducting further trials on 10 more persons to establish its medical success.

The Health Minister informed the House that Dr. Baruah had not obtained any permission from the drugs control authorities.

Replying to a zero hour notice raised by Communist Party of India (Marxist) Ananta Deka, the Minister said the State government would also urge Dr. Baruah to hand over the materials in support of his claim for onward submission to the drugs control authorities.

Mr. Deka drew the attention of the Minister to newspaper reports about Dr. Baruah’s claim and demanded a high level probe.

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