The ethical dilemmas raised by modern biomedical research are not confined to industrialized countries, and many less developed and industrializing nations are also growing increasingly concerned. India is tightening its ethical guidelines for biomedical research and is setting up a national bioethics advisory panel, although policing such guidelines is likely to remain an uphill task.

In the early 1980s, for example, despite the recent introduction of ethical guidelines for research on human subjects, a trial carried out at one of the institutes of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) involved withholding treatment from more than 1,000 women to enable researchers to find out if lesions in their uterine cervix turned into cancer.

Eventually more than 70 women developed cancer and two died during radiation therapy. “Our problem is not writing guidelines but their implementation,” says Avtar Singh Paintal, former director general of ICMR and founder president of the Society for Scientific Values, whose goal is to promote ethics in research.

A 15-member committee headed by M. N. Venkatachallaiah, a retired chief justice, is currently revising the ethical guidelines covering biomedical research, taking into account issues raised by modern genetics. Various subcommittees are evolving an ethical code for research in epidemiology, genetics and human tissue transplants.

Another committee is being set up by the Department of Biotechnology to draw up guidelines for human trials of recombinant products.