Too much information?

Infant deaths resulting from a recent clinical trial in India have led to a media outcry. But few have considered how explosive these revelations actually are, or the problematic use and application of the Right to Information Act.
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When India's Right to Information Act came into force in 2005, the legislation's text acknowledged the conflict that could arise from revealing certain information, pointing out that there was a need to 'harmonise' the interests of the public and those who used their democratic right to seek vital information. Lawmakers were wary of possible problems, and one exemption clause in the RTI Act thus specifically states that 'information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest' need not be disclosed. However, a significant amount of information that lies outside the purview of this section is frequently sought. One recent example of a 'successful' RTI application highlights the potential for this potent legislation to lead to inadvertent results.

In 2008, the Indian media published information about an RTI request in which Rahul Verma, the founder of an NGO called the Uday Foundation for Congenital Defects and Rare Blood Groups, was seeking information about clinical trials from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. This revealed that 49 sick children had died over the course of 30 months in the AIIMS paediatrics department while undergoing clinical trials. Predictably, this led to public outcry and a media firestorm. News reports suggested that children below the age of one were being specifically recruited in these then-ongoing trials, and that children of parents below the poverty line were possibly being targeted for recruitment as guinea pigs. Many newspapers gave these stories catchy headlines that suggested bad patient care and neglect in AIIMS, as well as exploitation and maltreatment of sick children from poor families.

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Himal Southasian
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