Cynical Trials Killing the Poverty Stricken

What happens when a poor man is lured into free treatment for whatsoever reasons. He feels elated for being selected for the treatment. He is exposed to risks no amount of money can treat. India has fast become one of the most popular destinations for clinical trials on human being as the country is filled with poverty stricken and illiterate masses. Most of them voluntarily register themselves unwittingly for a trial in untested drugs without having adequate knowledge of the drugs and its after effect.
The poor and illiterate are the most targeted ones by the pharmaceutical companies as the trials can be carried out with less expenditure. If not, it would cost them hugely just for the trials. Niranjan Lal Pathak-72 a factory watchman is one such victim who was unaware of the fact initially and felt lucky that he was offered a free heart treatment by a doctor in Madhya Pradesh.
Pathak’s nephew Alok said that the doctors told them that Pathak was being treated for a special project for free of cost and were given a condition that the family members should only approach the doctor for medicine and not the local chemists if they ran out of it. It was five years ago and he didn't realise that the Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital in the city of Indore was about to enroll him in a trial of an untested drug. A petition filed by the family in India's Supreme Court alleges that the drug tested on him was Atopaxar, developed by Japan-based pharmaceutical company Eisai and supposed to treat anxiety disorders. The family claimed that the side-effects of the drug left Pathak suffering from dementia.