Deaths in a trial of the HPV vaccine
The death of girls who were a part of a Human Papilloma Virus vaccine trial has raised an alarm about the nature of research in India as well as the value attached by the state to the lives of its citizens.
The trial was being conducted in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat by the NGO PATH with support from the Indian Council of Medical Research and local health authorities. They were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The vaccine is supplied by two companies, Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Glaxo Smith Kline.
When the government stopped the trials, three doses had already been administered to 30,000 participants, mostly tribal girls aged between 9 and 14.
The union health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has denied that the deaths have anything to do with the trials, and as things stand, there is no conclusive evidence of a causal link between the vaccine and the deaths. But the fact that the girls were a part of the trial is reason enough to warrant further investigations.
A committee has been constituted by the union government to investigate the deaths. Further action will depend on the report of the committee.
An investigation in one of the sites in AP, coordinated by the women’s health group SAMA, revealed that the trials recruited tribal girls from poor areas. These girls were malnourished. To worsen the situation, consent forms for the trial are in English which even the health care provider administering the vaccine to them may not be able to read, let alone the participants.
Kalpana Sharma, Uninformed consent. The Hindu, April 17, 2010. Aarti Dhar, Brinda: panel may not serve independent probe. The Hindu, April 14, 2010. Sanjay Mehdudia. No, Indian girls won’t be used as guinea pigs: Azad. The Hindu, April 22, 2010. K Majumdar, The cervical cancer bazaar.
Tehelka.com, March 20, 2010.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=Ne200310coverstory.asp 
