President Obama's Bioethics Commission

[Guest guest]

Dear Netrumians, especially Vijay in Himalayas,In the wake of recent revelation in US about the Syphilis experiment conducted on prisoners in Gautemala between 1946-48, President Obama asked his Bioethics Commission to see if such violations

existed now and to see if the decades old regulations require revision to provide more protection, especially in oversees US funded research. For this it has constituted an international panel which will examine the following :

a. The dominant norms, and competing alternatives, driving the ethics of medical research in different global regions outside of the United States;

b. The conflicts, if any, between U.S. norms and international standards;

c. The challenges facing researchers conducting U.S.-funded research in global settings;and

d. Possible strategies to address differences in regional norms for medical research.

In view of your various experiences as PIs (especially those with US funding) and or as ethics committee members, I request you to send me your comments on the above-mentioned points. I would consider them

of high value for presenting the same to the international panel of which I am a member as I am keen to have the collective Indian opinion.Kind regards,

Nandini K. Kumar

Former Deputy Director General Sr. Grade

Co-investigator NIH project

National Institute of Epidemiology

R 127, 3rd Avenue,

TNHB, Ayapakkam,

Chennai 600077

Ph : +91 44 26136214

Telefax : +91 44 26820891