PIDUGURALLA (Guntur district): A day after it came to light that women from this town were used as guinea pigs by a pharma company for testing an anti-breast cancer drug, police arrested two brokers Karunamma and Jalamma on Friday.The accused tried to flee from the village but the police managed to nab them.The duo are being interrogated to find out the extent of their operations.There was a flurry of activity in the dusty town as dawn broke out with political parties and officials making a beeline to the victims’ houses.The women in turn came up with chilling accounts of their experiences.P Suseela, who was deserted by her husband, had ‘volunteered’ for the trials after she came to know that another woman, Kommu Karunamma, was paid upto Rs 9,000. Fortunately for her, she was found to be “ineligible”.Those who tested her gave her Rs 1,700 towards the train fare. Sk Bibi, Seva Suvartha, Jakka Kamala and Korivi Vignanamma also visited Hyderabad at the instance of Karunamma for clinical trials. All of them have fallen sick. It is alleged that GVK Biosciences Private Limited’s agents selected poor women of Adarshnagar and Leninnagar in Piduguralla for clinical trials.It is said that over 35 to 50 women of these colonies were taken to Hyderabad by the brokers. The company, in a press release, denied conducting trials on the women. “We only conduct bioavailabilty/bioequivalence studies at Hyderbad facility,” GVK Biosciences said in a statement. Speaking to Express, Suseela and Sk Bibi said the hospital authorities took their blood samples fifteen times a day.Another person Gurram Venkatewarlu said he had opted for clinical trials due to poverty. “Now I can’t drive my autorickshaw due to knee pains,” he said.Another woman said over one thousand people were present in the ward where she was tested. It is not the first time that clinical trials were conducted on people in this town. A Hyderabadbased pharmaceutical company had conducted clinical trails on a few youths of Santagudipadu and Piduguralla in 2005 for testitng the efficacy of its cancer vaccine.When the issue came to light, the company paid some amount to the victims and stopped the trials. Later in 2009, a cancer vaccine was administered to one Nageswara Rao of Piduguralla.He died three months ago.
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