Ethics committees meant to protect the rights of patients enrolled in clinical trials are doing the roaring business in the name of reviewing, approving and monitoring, specially the so-called independent ethics committees…
The clinical trials in India are loaded with harmful effects and their compensation mechanism is a big ‘NO’. What comes as a greater surprise is how the so-called ethics committee established to clear such experiments are raking in big money and doing nothing. No one seems to know what exactly are these entities; who owns them and who collects the revenue earned; how is it distributed and to whom, and how do they decide what amount to charge? They charge exorbitant amounts and earn fat packets from the business of vetting- actually, approving- trials.
In fact, there seem to be no clear-cut rules regarding who can form an IEC or how it is supposed to function. There seems to be no need to register it either. The result is that even clinical research organisation(CROs) that get contracts from companies to conduct trials can float their own independent ethics committees to clear trials without any hitch.
