Government panel questions cost and efficacy of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.

Govt accused of manipulating data to introduce HPV vaccine across country.

The committee also found that the ICMR had actually signed an MoU with a US agency, PATH, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, even before the vaccine was approved for use in India.

The vaccine has so far been introduced in two districts of Punjab and in government schools in Delhi on a pilot basis with no evidence of its efficacy.

The HPV vaccine trial had earlier run into trouble when seven girls died post vaccination in the Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh, a fact highlighted by Parliament’s 72nd Standing Committee on Health.

Dr Puliyel’s research paper also points out that there is no evidence that the vaccine actually works. The vaccine is only 10 years old and no trail has been conducted to study its efficacy in India, he says. The only time such a trial was attempted was without taking consent of tribal girls in Andhra Pradesh.

Shockingly, the vaccine is being introduced countrywide overlooking the report of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Health, which had come out with some startling findings on the role of ICMR in promoting a clinical trial on humans without their consent. Following the furore, an inquiry committee was set up. But the Standing Committee discovered that one of the doctors of the inquiry committee enjoyed the hospitality of the company conducting the trial.