Deaths raise questions in Indian hospital

St. Petersburg Times, December 15, 2008

Since the beginning of 2006, the pediatric department at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences had conducted 42 clinical trials, involving 4,142 children. There were 49 deaths that resulted from these trials, and the news set off a firestorm. Though hospital officials documented that the deaths were due to underlying illnesses, even fellow researchers wondered why an overburdened public hospital, which handles about 500 pediatric outpatients a day, was taking on the extra work of clinical trials.