Controversial Experiment for Brain-Dead Revival Dropped

A controversial experiment to revive brain-dead accident victims has been scrapped.

The Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) National Institute of Medical Statistics officially removed the "ReAnima" trial from India's clinical trial registry on Nov. 11.

The experiment began in May when Himanshu Bansal, an orthopedic surgeon at Anupam Hospital in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, announced plans to give approximately 20 brain-dead people a mix of interventions including injections of mesenchymal stem cells, peptides, transcranial laser stimulation and median nerve stimulation.

Transcranial laser stimulation is a process that involves shinning pulses of near-infrared light in the brain, while median nerve stimulation is the electrical stimulation of a major nerve that runs from the neck to the arm. Both techniques have been proven to improve cognition in patients with traumatic brain injury.

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ICH GCP requires EC members to be independent of investigator and sponsor to avoid conflicts of interest

Can an Ethics Committee member e.g. layman/chairman or anyone in the committee participate in the trial as a subject? Vidya If an Ethics Committee member becomes a trial subject on a trial that he/she was involved in approving then there has been a major conflict of interest. The following situations need to be considered: ● IEC member reviews study without any prior knowledge of the study, votes, and then afterwards is approached by clinical research team to participate. Possibly this is OK but the member should no longer be part of the IEC that reviews that study. This will be difficult in practice, so therefore it is not advisable. ● IEC member already knows about the study and is voting in order to be able to participate. This is clearly not acceptable and made worse if there is additional financial incentive for the study (e.g. volunteer study). ICH GCP requires Ethics Committee members to be independent of the investigator and the sponsor to avoid confl...

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Prescription Drugs Special Report Ever wonder how the medications you take act in your body? This brief guide explains how several classes of popular drugs work. Thousands of medications are in use today. Here are some of the most common mechanisms by which these drugs achieve their effects: Antibiotic Drugs -- The development of safe and effective drugs to cure infections was arguably the most significant advance in drug development of the 20th century. Perhaps the most famous example is penicillin, which is derived from a toxin produced by the fungus Penicillium notatum that contaminated a laboratory experiment. The Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming noticed that the Penicillium fungus had done something to kill the bacterium Staphylococcus, which is responsible for many human infections. Antibiotics have several modes of action. Penicillin disrupts the cell walls of bacteria, causing them to die. Some other antibiotics interfere with the ability of microorganisms to ...

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