Government indiscretion increases unethical clinical trials in Pakistan
October 09, 2016
KARACHI: In Pakistan, a country of approximately 200 million people there are several social, economical and civic issues. A major medical problem plaguing the country is the lack of clinical trials from pharmaceutical companies and doctors playing with human life by conducting unethical clinical trials.
A senior scientist and physician on the basis of anonymity told Geo News that over 600 pharmaceutical companies are making huge profits in Pakistan; however, this is not translated to even 10 per cent of these companies spending any money on clinical research and investigation on drugs.
The senior scientist further said there is no record of how many clinical trials are conducted, neither is there any documented evidence for registration, product efficiency, safety of patient and demographic issues. Doctors or senior health experts are doing clinical trials in Pakistan to get promotions.
A senior professor of family medicine from Aga Khan University Hospital, Dr Waris Qidwai said that status of clinical trials in Pakistan have many issues which have to be resolved at any cost. An ethical review committee should approve the trial before taking the patient onboard and the patient should be aware of the consequences.
“Government should implement health and clinical trial laws and impose a strict punishment on it,” Dr Qidwai added.
According to Dr Qidwai, the clinical trial status research review paper showed that only 80 clinical trials have been registered in the country and before conducting any clinical trial, the patient and his or her family should be aware of it
On the basis of anonymity a senior scientist and pharma expert said that clinical trials and clinical practice are two different things which should be known by the physicians because some people start it as a business to produce fake, bogus and plagiarised clinical trials.
Health experts urged the government, Pakistan Dental and Medical Council to implement the laws strictly and release the list of the doctors who did un-ethical clinical trials.
