Book Overview

The infamous Bhopal gas tragedy which occurred on 3rd-4th night of December 1984 led to over three thousand deaths, besides injuring and physically maiming many more for life. Later many more developed cancer, kidney and liver diseases, women delivered physically and mentally challenged babies. Despite sustained demands and agitations by activists and NGOs to secure justice for the victims the Indian Government failed to provide proper compensation to the affected people, and also failed to take any punitive action against Warren Anderson and Union Carbide an American business house. Can we expect that the Indian Government will take a firm stand against a very powerful body like World Health Organization (WHO) if some wrongful act has been committed by it on Indian people? Answer: may be not much. In case harmed population happens to be children in India, we should expect that Indian Academy of Pediatrics, an Association of Child Specialists in India, would take firmly a right stand under all circumstances and act as a pressure group. Unfortunately it did not happen. Polio disease can be caused by wild polio viruses as well as by mutant vaccine polio viruses contained in OPV, a fact which was kept guarded and people were not informed. Last polio case by wild polio virus was reported on 13th January 2011, but polio cases caused by OPV continue to occur, but these cases are not counted as polio cases. On 20th January 2014 World Health Organization certified India as a polio free country. The way polio eradication has been carried out in India, it can be said that whole nation has been taken for a ride. Policy makers and those associated with polio eradication program should answer following questions. (1) Does OPV cause polio disease in some children?, (2) Have some children in India developed polio disease because of OPV?, (3) Have some children developed polio disease despite taking many doses of OPV? and (4) How has India become polio free country while polio cases caused by OPV are occurring even after 13th January 2011? Polio eradication program was launched in India in 1995. National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) is the only agency in the country which collects, tabulates, analyses and prepares data regarding polio cases. In many articles published in Indian and Foreign Medical Journals I have shown that NPSP is under reporting polio incidences, which in simple terms means falsification of data. I had based my observations and results on the study of official documents of NPSP. I must acknowledge that to critique an academic body (Indian Academy of Pediatrics) of which I am a member is certainly not a pleasant job. But, the way science, ethics and logic have been thrown out of the window are the compelling reasons to take up this unpleasant task. My endeavour is to present scientific facts in easy to understand language.