Thread: Indian author says superbug report is fudged

Indian author says superbug report is fudged

Pushpa Narayan, TNN, Aug 13, 2010, 03.24am IST

CHENNAI: A day after the Lancet report on a drug-resistant superbug NDM-1 created a global scare, India hit out at the study, which it said was funded by pharma companies that make antibiotics to treat such cases.

While the Union health ministry issued a statement on Thursday, which took offence to the naming of the bug after the national capital, the report's Chennai-based lead authorKarthikeyan Kumarasamy dissociated himself from parts of it.

"The study was funded by the European Union and two pharmaceutical companies, Wellcome Trust and Wyeth, which produce antibiotics for treatment of such cases. It also needs to be highlighted that several of the authors have declared conflict of interest in the publication," the health ministry said.

Kumarasamy said he had not written many of the interpretations in the report; they were added later without his permission or knowledge. "I do not agree with the last paragraph which advises people to avoid elective surgeries in India. While I did the scientific work, correspondence author Timothy R Walsh of Cardiff University was assigned to edit the report," he told TOI. According to the study, based on a survey of patients in Indian cities, a multi-drug resistant strain of bacteria was spreading from Indian hospitals.

The report implied that India is the prime source of the superbug which is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics, and advised patients to avoid elective surgeries in the country.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) which met on Thursday to discuss the Lancet report termed it "severely biased" against India. "It's not been decided whether we should write to the editor of the journal, but we have condemned and disagreed with the conclusions and inferences the report has drawn. Since this is a scientific report, we are looking at scientific ways to contest it. So far, the UK government has not issued any alarm. If they do so, we will take it up with the UK government," said Indian Council of Medical Researchdirector Dr V M Katoch.

"There are several such (multi-drug resistant) strains found in the UK and the US. In fact, some of them are deadlier than the present superbug. But it makes news only when it comes from India. They have made a mountain out of a mole hill," said PM Bhargava, former director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.

"When a deadly hospital infection like MRSA was cited in the USA more than a decade ago, India had no cases. At least 15,000 people died of hospital-acquired infections in the US last year. It is no different in the UK," he said.

The name of the superbug, New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, has also come in for severe criticism. "Should AIDS be named after the US? Or should MRSA (another superbug) be named after the UK? Why only India's name is tagged to the new bug?" says Delhi-based cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Naresh Trehan.

What has surprised doctors even more is that the report came soon after a report by International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery ranked India among the top five nations for cosmetic surgical and non-surgical procedures.

The Union health ministry in a statement on Thursday said: "It should have been highlighted that getting infection by such drug resistant bacteria is a matter of chance, is a global phenomenon and is preventable by sound infection prevention strategies which are followed in any good hospital. While such organisms may be circulating more commonly in the world due to international travel but to link this with the safety of surgery hospitals in India and citing isolated examples to show that due to the presence of such organism in Indian environment, India is not a safe place is wrong.

Meanwhile, experts agree on the urgent need to have a registry for such infections and also an antibiotics policy. "We are working towards having both. Without such records, we are often not equipped to scientifically challenge such reports," said Katoch.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 302479.cms

RELATED

South Asian superbug claims first fatality

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1103606.html