| Indian
Patients Getting HIV Through Contaminated Blood: PBT Takes On NACO, Monozyme and World Bank |
| News of innocent people being infected with
HIV/AIDS through contaminated blood from hospitals and blood banks appear
almost on a daily basis in India. Although the Monozyme HIV “kit”
scandal made headlines in West Bengal in October, 2006, it was soon brushed
aside through evil influences from our political and medical leaders.
PBT is now taking on the Indian corrupt leaders including the devious
National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and the manufacturer of bogus
HIV testing kits like Monozyme India Ltd. |
| Dr. Kunal Saha, PBT president and a world-renowned AIDS specialist,
was asked by the World Bank earlier this year to join them as a "medical
consultant” to investigate complaints of fraud and corruption
with the defective HIV-test kits in India. Earlier in 2007, Dr. Saha
visited (as a member of the World Bank team) many hospitals/blood banks
in India to investigate the charges of corruption with defective "kits"
that transmit deadly viruses like HIV, Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis
C (HCV) to the hapless and unsuspecting Indian patients. Dr. Saha has
recently declared the problems with defective and sub-standard HIV-test
kits in India. The NACO leaders are obviously upset for Dr. Saha’s
bold move. Ms. Sujata Rao, Director General of the NACO, has viciously
attacked Dr. Saha and in an interview published in the 12th July, 2007
issue of the Hindustan Times, she has called Dr. Saha as a person with
“no credibility”. |
Dr. Saha's credibility
as an international HIV/AIDS specialist is evident from his illustrious
academic and research career. After graduating from the NRS Medical College,
Kolkata, in 1985, Dr. Saha migrated to USA where his family lived for
many year. He was trained with HIV/AIDS at prestigious medical centres
in the USA including Univ. of Texas – M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
in Texas and the Ivy League school, Columbia University in New York City
before joining Ohio State University/Children’s Hospital in Columbus,
Ohio in 1998 as a tenure-track faculty member to conduct HIV/AIDS research.
Dr. Saha has also obtained a Masters and a Ph.D. in “Microbiology”
and “Molecular Biology” from the UT-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Over the past almost two decades, Dr. Saha has published numerous scientific
articles on HIV/AIDS in top international medical journals including a
major discovery on AIDS in 2001 in the journal “Nature Medicine”,
one of the top medical journals in the world. Dr. Saha has received numerous
awards, grants (from the National Institute of Health; NIH) and other
international organizations on HIV/AIDS. Dr. Saha has trained many medical/graduate
students in his laboratory in USA. Dr. Saha has been invited by numerous
hospitals/universities across the world including the National AIDS Research
Institute (NARI) in India in 2006. He has also presented his work in countless
international conferences on HIV/AIDS. |
| Above
all, the World Bank approached Dr. Saha to help them as a “medical
consultant” (only scientist from USA with the World Bank team) in
their investigation of complaints of corruption with the HIV testing kits
in India only because of Dr. Saha’s commendable stature as an internationally
famous HIV/AIDS specialist. It is a shame that the NACO Director, Sujata
Rao, has attempted to brand this internationally recognized scientist
(on HIV/AIDS) of Indian origin as a person with “no credibility”
only because Dr. Saha has vowed to expose the scam with the HIV-test kits
involving millions of dollars and countless innocent victims of contaminated
blood that our healthcare leaders have deliberately kept under the rug
until now. We wonder about the “credibility” of the NACO Director,
who is not even a medical doctor and according to her credential available
at the NACO website, she does not even possess a “doctoral”
degree. We wonder how and why a non-doctor/physician could be appointed
as the Head of the entire hierarchy of India’s failing battle to
control HIV/AIDS. |
| In
order to bring the truth of the bogus HIV-testing kits from Monozyme India
Ltd (owned by the Sarda family, close associates of some top CPM leaders),
PBT has filed an “Intervention” petition (C.M.P. No. 7846
of 2007) in the pending SLP (criminal) (Amit Sarda vs. State of West Bengal;
SLP (Cri) No. 1807 of 2007) in relation to the defective Monozyme “kits”
where Dr. Saha has claimed that both Mr. Amit Sarda and State of West
Bengal have misled the court by providing useless medical report from
the National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in Noida. This case will come
up for hearing on Monday, August 6, 2007. |
| The
“Criminal” case against the three “eminent” Calcutta
doctors (Sukumar Mukherjee, Abani Roychowdhury and Baidyanath Halder)
and the “Civil” case (that also include Dr. Balaram Prasad,
Dr. Kausik Nandi and AMRI Hospital near Gariahat) for the highest ever
compensation (Rs. 143 crore) for the wrongful death of Anuradha Saha,
wife of Dr. Saha, have been tagged together by the Apex Court. Both these
historic cases would come for the final judgment before the Supreme Court
in the near future. |
The
news of Dr. Saha’s recent battle with the bogus HIV-test kits have
been carried by many news media worldwide even though most of the media
in West Bengal have remained silent about this major developments. We
wonder why? Some of the news items published recently may be obtained at the following sites: |
| 1) Times of India (13th July, 2007) |
| 2) Yahoo News (5th July, 2007) |
| 3) Nagaland Post (14th July, 2007) |
| 4) Gulf Times (14th July, 2007) |
| 5) New Kerala (July 6, 2007) |