This phenomenon is revealed by a survey by the English newspaper 'The Independent', according to which a total of over 150,000 people are currently participating in at least 1,600 clinical trials on behalf of pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca
Illiterate people recruited to participate in clinical trials without real informed consent and without knowing the risks. Victims almost never compensated. Doctors who "advised" their patients to take a drug, without telling them that they were participating in a clinical trial. These are some of the abuses committed on behalf of some Western pharmaceutical giants in India, since 2005 it has become a true 'paradise' for the experimentation of new drugs, thanks to a "relaxed" legislation.
This phenomenon is revealed by an investigation by the English newspaper 'The Independent', which tells how this new form of 'colonialism' has taken hold in the Asian country. To understand the reason for this phenomenon, we need to start from one consideration: research for the development of a new drug lasts about 10-15 years and can cost 500 billion, to comply with all the guidelines, regulations and various stages of experimentation. By relocating, on the other hand, pharmaceutical companies are able to cut research costs by up to 60 percent and make large profits by selling new drugs on the Western market.
That's why since India relaxed the rules on human experiments, the sector has undergone an exponential increase, and the research industry in the Asian country is now worth 189 million pounds. In total, over 150,000 people are participating today in at least 1,600 clinical trials on behalf of pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer, Merck And AstraZeneca. Between 2007 and 2010 – according to the figures reported by theindependent – at least 1,730 people died during or after taking part in one of these experiments. Although it is difficult to establish whether they died precisely because of the tests they were subjected to - many of them were in fact already ill - it is also impossible to say the opposite, as it was the same doctors who conducted the experiment who determined whether there was a link between the substance tested and their death.
A few months ago, the Indian health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, told the Indian parliament that 10 foreign pharmaceutical companies had paid compensation to the families of 22 individuals who died during or after clinical trials in 2010, with compensation amounting on average to 'well' 3 thousand pounds per person. “Indians are exploited by pharmaceutical companies who then make millions by selling the medicine
