In one of the most shocking stories in modern day India, a BBC investigation has revealed that Pharmaceutical companies have been recruiting patients without their consent for drug trials which has become a big business in India today.
According to the BBC, six years ago an experimental drug from the US called M4N was injected into cancer patients in India without being properly tested on animals first. Later it was discovered that several patients had not known they were part of a clinical trial.
In almost all cases the poor patients have no idea that experiments were being carried out on them.
BBC's Reporter Paul Kenyon tracked down a drug trial being conducted for a major drug company in a psychiatric unit at a hospital in Gujarat to test an anti-psychotic drug developed by the drug pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson.
But the patient said that he had no idea that he was part of a clinical trial.
"I didn't know that experiments were being carried out on me. I was told that the old drugs were discontinued and were no longer available in the pharmacies.
"I don't know a lot about all these things. I am poor and I live in a small hut and I don't understand many things. The doctors are intelligent. They write the drugs for me so I have to take them accordingly."
Incidents like these underline the fact the in the greed to earn money the Pharmaceutical companies have lost any little value for human life. Not surprisingly the value for life is much less in India than anywhere in the West. While our economies grow at 8% the unchecked menace of various Pharmaceutical companies thrive unnoticed
