Experts slam limited line of treatment

Experts slam limited line of treatment Buzz Up Share
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Medical experts have opined that the biggest failure on the Bhopal gas disaster front has been the line of treatment to the victims remaining the same after a quarter of a century. According to experts, no focused researches has been conducted to assess the environmental and health effects of Methyl Isocyanate poisoning in the 26 years since the disaster.

"Doctors in Bhopal still give the same drugs that were given in December 1984, when nothing was known about the poisonous gas," said Dr D K Satpathy, who retired as director of Medico-Legal Institute of the MP government. "For generations, doctors have been prescribing steroids and antibiotics indiscriminately to Bhopal victims. Two generations of victims have been 'managing' their illnesses in absence of focused research," he added.

In January 2009, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had invited research proposals to study the effects of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) poisoning. After waiting for a year, ICMR decided to keep the 'call for research proposals' open because there were no noteworthy submissions.

The state government stopped monitoring mortalities caused by MIC in 1992. ICMR had temporarily set up the Bhopal Gas Disaster Research Centre under the Gandhi Medical College to monitor the health effects of MIC exposure, but it was shut down ten years after the disaster. The findings of the studies conducted in those 10 years were never published.