‘Products should not be endorsed for monetary benefits'
The national workshop on ‘Redefining Medical Ethics' organised by the KERALA State unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) have formulated a charter as follows :
1. Restrain hospitals from advertising their specialties, the same way individual doctors are banned from doing so by the Medical Council of India. Except for announcing the setting up of a new hospital or a new clinic by a doctor, the charter bans advertisements on expert or modern facilities at hospitals.
2. professional associations in medical field should not endorse products for monetary benefits.
3.On clinical trials, that the consent from the patient alone was not enough, but the consent of the whole family would be needed.
4. on REASEARCH : Since there are no ethical practice guidelines for clinical research, the KERALA IMA has decided to follow the protocol put forth by the Indian Council of Medical Research. The patients should be given enough time to think about it and consult the family before giving consent for clinical trial.
5. Profits from manufacture & sales of the drugs sold should be directed for research within the country, which could boost national-level research in drug molecules thus benefitting the patients. Most of the research funds now collected were being siphoned off to foreign countries.
6. The charter, finalised on the concluding day of the workshop, on the subjects of Ethics and Etiquette of Medical Profession and Clinical Trial, Research and Informed Consent will be forwarded to the working committee of the IMA for approval before submitting to the government.
Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, judge, High Court of Kerala; N.R. Madhava Menon, chairman, CDS and chairman for Co-ordinating Committee Central State Relation; advocate Atul Sharma from Delhi; and V.C. Velayudhan Pillai (former president), Raghava Rao (national vice-president), Joseph Mani (former State president) and Abraham Koshy of IMA spoke in various sessions.
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