Johns Hopkins varsity begins probe

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, AUG. 4. The Johns Hopkins University has said that it had announced on July 30 that it was investigating whether its policies on human subjects research has been violated by a faculty member in a clinical trial of experimental cancer drugs in Kerala in 1999- 2000.

The statement was in response to the Regional Cancer Centre in Kerala posting on its website a document which had stated among other things that a Phase-II trial will begin soon at the RCC, the JK Cancer Hospital in Kanpur and the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi.

``In response to that posting, the Johns Hopkins University is contacting all three hospitals to inform them that neither the original 1999-2000 trial nor the planned follow-up trial has been approved by the Johns Hopkins University or by any of its departments or institutional review boards. Johns Hopkins has begun a formal investigation of the faculty member's role in the 1999-2000 trial,'' the statement of the University's office of news and information says.

The university has further said that it announced on July 30 that its faculty member has been directed to cease all activities involving the study in question for the duration of the investigation. ``Specifically the faculty member has been directed not to participate in any follow-up clinical trials in India. The faculty member has been directed not to have any role in any clinical trials or human subjects research at any location. For the duration of the investigation, the faculty member is limited to doing basic research in the laboratory at Johns Hopkins and nowhere else,'' the statement says.

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Section  : International
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