Drug trial: Patients get blurred vision

Eight women from Piduguralla town in Guntur district, who took ill after Hyderabad-based pharma company Axis conducted clinical trials on them, have developed blurred vision. HT reports.

Eight women from Piduguralla town in Guntur district, who took ill after Hyderabad-based pharma company Axis conducted clinical trials on them, have developed blurred vision. Two others, who also took the new drug for breast cancer, have been detected with diabetes and one has developed liver complications, said Dr Phanibhusan, superintendent of the Government General Hospital, Guntur, where the women are admitted.

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About 30 women had been lured for the trials with handsome remuneration, which never materialised.

A team of revenue and police officials visited some of the victims in Piduguralla on Saturday to probe the episode as ordered by the state government on Friday. Two women were also arrested in this connection.

Meanwhile, minister for rural development Manikya Vara Prasad urged CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy to bring in a law to restrain drugl firms from resorting to indiscriminate “clinical trials”.