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Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony on Thursday said there was no need for M Krishnan Nair, the beleaguered director of the Regional Cancer Centre, to resign.
"I am not trying to protect anyone. There is no reason for the RCC director to step down during the period of the inquiry," Antony told journalists.
The chief minister also urged the media to be careful in reporting the controversy surrounding the RCC.
"The RCC is a pioneering institute in the country and negative media reports would tarnish its image," the chief minister said.
The cancer institute is in the eye of a storm over the alleged trial of an untested drug on 27 unsuspecting patients at its hospital.
The drug was developed by a research team headed by Ru Chih Huang at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in the United States.
Meanwhile, a cancer patient, R Gopalan, 64, has complained to the Kerala Human Rights Commission that the RCC had tried an untested drug on him without his consent.
He urged the commission to seize the drug samples as well as the documents pertaining to the trials from the RCC.
Gopalan, a resident of Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, reported all this in a petition filed on Thursday through his counsel Vincent Panikulangara.
"The fundamental and human rights of Gopalan as a patient have been violated and action has to be taken," Vincent told Indo-Asian News Service.
RCC director M Krishnan Nair, Johns Hopkins University president William Broody, the Kerala government and the team that carried out the trials have been made respondents in the petition.
The human rights commission has issued a notice to Nair to depose before it on August 13.
Indo-Asian News Service
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