Patna Medical college: 196 research papers get ethics committee nod

Patna: The Patna Medical College's ethics committee on Saturday met after a year to grant its approval to 196 research papers to be undertaken for research and later submitted by postgraduate students of the medical institution.

Amongst the approved researches include social parameters for suicides, IQ level from blood group, the effect of iodized salt intake on a person's growth, a person's vulnerability to animal bites, to risk among marginalized people to contract non-communicable diseases

An ethics committee member, speaking to The Telegraph about one of the topics approved – ‘determining IQ level from a person's blood group,’ said, "A student from the medicine department submitted this. The committee had suggested the candidate increase the sample size, and had also recommended Aryabhatta Knowledge University to allow a co-guide from the psychiatry department for the research,"

The Patna Medical College runs under AKU, and the psychiatry department plays a role, as the study involves the assessment of a person's IQ level.

Principal, Vijay Kumar Gupta told the daily: "It is mandatory for postgraduate students to take up a research project. To conduct the research, the students need the approval of the ethics committee. It is supposed to check if the studies are in violation of ethics."

Preventive and Social Medicine, Head, Rashmi Singh said: "The research on iodised salt intake's effect on mental and physical growth will be conducted in north Bihar where there is a high prevalence of goitre. Another research from our department will be to detect how much are marginalised people at the risk of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, besides finding out epidemiology of animal bites."

Giving reasons for the ethics committee not to have met last year Principal, Gupta said that while the six-monthly meeting of the ethics committee members was scheduled for every year, it was the absence of members that led to the postponement of the meeting last year to the present one. "We have reconstituted the ethics committee and this time we have ensured outsiders and noted people from different fields," he said. "Retired additional director-general (CID) Rajvardhan Sharma is the chairman and members include: Asian Development Research Institute member-secretary, Shaibal Gupta,” he further revealed.