Co. Shut For Testing Drugs On Women

Axis, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company at Miyapur (Kukatpally), which conducted unauthorized drug trials on about 20 poor women working in quarries in Piduguralla of Guntur district, after hoodwinking the government for a long time, was finally sealed after seizure by the authorities concerned on Friday.

The company, disregarding a formal permission from the Drug Control Authority of India, allegedly engaged poor and illiterate women as guinea pigs for conducting tests for the treatment of breast cancer.

Employing brokers, the company allegedly hired innocent and BPL women, and gave them injections after collecting blood samples for a meagre 'amount'.

It was only later that the women came to their senses, after which they developed side effects and took ill.

"It was an aberration of the system," said Minister for Health and Family Welfare D L Ravindra Reddy, who seemed to be unaware of the culprit company.

The Minister avoided the media persons at the Secretariat on Friday, but journalists finally got him to reveal the facts related to the incident.

A report is awaited on the entire episode, and action will be initiated against the culprit once identified, said the Minister.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who held a review meeting here, along with the Minister for Health and other officers, expressed concern over the incident, and called for a report on the incident.

Meanwhile, 2 middlemen, employed by the said company for the last 2 months to entice the poverty-stricken women, were said to have been arrested on Friday.

The gruesome incident was one that would not have come to light at all but for some victims' complaints of extreme weakness and pain to a local doctor. When the doctor told them they were subjected to experimental tests, they were shocked. The victims were then admitted to the Guntur government hospital. (INN)