The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the need for good clinical trials in India – they help us figure out treatments that work and ones that don’t. But some of these studies have been marred by reports of ethical violations, creating hesitancy among the general public.

There are checks and balances in the Indian clinical trial rules and other guidelines that are meant to prevent these violations. One of these checks is in the form of a body called the Ethics Committee. In this episode, we demystify this ethics committee. What is their role? Why do ethical irregularities keep cropping up? And what can ethics committees do to prevent them? 

For this episode, Shreya Dasgupta spoke to Dr. Urmila Thatte, a clinical pharmacologist, bioethicist and Emeritus professor at the Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai; Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global public health researcher at Yenepoya University in Mangalore; and Dr. Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, the clinical director for clinical research, academics and patient safety, at Peerless hospital at Kolkata.

This episode was supported by a grant from the Thakur Family Foundation, which has not exercised any editorial control over the contents of the podcast.