Ahead of the 35th anniversary
of the Bhopal
gas tragedy, organizations representing survivors have accused the Indian Council
of Medical Research (ICMR) of suppressing a crucial study depicting
comparatively higher rate of birth defects in babies of mothers exposed to the
methyl isocyanate gas that killed thousands and maimed lakhs in December 1984.
“The
documents they obtained from NIREH (National Institute for Research on
Environmental Health) show that its parent organization ICMR decided to not
publish the results of a study that found that birth defects in babies of
gas-exposed mothers was several times higher compared to those of non-exposed
mothers.
According to
the documents, Dr Ruma Galgalekar, the principal investigator of the study
conducted by NIREH, found that 9 per cent of the 1,048 babies born to
gas-exposed mothers reported congenital malformations (birth defects), while in
1,247 babies born to unexposed mothers, only 1.3 per cent had congenital
malformations. The study, costing little over INR 48 lakh, was carried out from
January 2016 to June 2017 following approval by three successive meetings of
the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of the ICMR from December 2014 to January
2017.
As per the
minutes of the expert group’s meeting on April 4, 2018, (obtained through RTI)
the group strongly recommended that, "this data, due to its inherent
flaws, should not be put in public domain and shared at any platforms.”
According to the four experts, the “inherent flaws” of the study were “various
methodological issues, problems of invalidated data and outcome assessment
bias”.
At the eighth
SAC meeting in October 2018, the members agreed that “as the said project had
flaws… the results are erroneous and thus should not be brought in the public
domain”.
Our thoughts: Even today the victims can be followed up to know the
scientific truth.
Dr KK Aggarwal
Padma Shri Awardee
President Confederation of Medical
Associations in Asia and Oceania (CMAAO)
Group Editor-in-Chief IJCP Publications
President Heart Care Foundation of
India
Past National President
IMA
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