Indian"Secret" HIV Virus Trials Probed

India's Mumbai High Court has ordered an inquiry into alleged secret medical trials conducted on 10 HIV patients at the Indian Health Organization's premises in 1994, using a US-made bovine immunodeficiency virus.

The court has called on the state Food and Drugs Administration and the Maharashtra state government to undertake the inquiry into the experiment, in which the BIV vaccine was allegedly given without testing and without the permission of the national drug controller. The case arose out of a writ filed by one of the patients, claiming that they were treated "worse than guinea pigs" and had been misinformed about the vaccine. The World Health Organization had assessed the trials as unscientific and unethical.

The court said that if the inquiry found that IHO president I S Gilada had procured the vaccine without government sanction, action should be taken against him. It also directed Dr Gilada to administer the third dose of the vaccine to the plaintiff who, with other patients, had expressed fears over abandonment of the trials after administration of two doses, on the grounds that the live virus might mutate within their bodies into a deadlier form of HIV. Dr Gilada claims that the trials were without his consent, and said he could not vouch for the drug's efficacy.