In an article “Trials that went wrong” published in the ‘Sunday Spotlight’ page on clinical trials, we had mentioned that “The Sharon Cancer Research Institution and SKS Hospital conducted trials on more than 400 healthy individuals, who were led into believing that the exercise was a medical check-up.

The trials were done under the banner of Lotus Laboratory, a branch of Sharon Cancer Centre.” Lotus Labs has issued a rejoinder that there has been no such attempt to mislead volunteers. Dr Saral Thangam, MD told Deccan Herald, “In fact, the Drugs Controller had looked into the allegation and conducted a surprise inspection of Lotus Labs near Salem. They gave us a clean chit.”

She said that the trials being for biomedicals (drugs already licensed and in the market) usually enlists healthy volunteers through word of mouth. Lotus has a database of over 25,000 volunteers. “Each volunteer is usually put through a series of medical tests and counselled before the drug is given. We also keep them at our centre for 24 hours for monitoring by doctors.”

Lotus has conducted more than 1,200 studies in the last six years, and is not a branch of Sharon Cancer Centre, she said.