PAKISTAN is lagging behind in research, in general, and medical research, in particular. The coronavirus crisis has accentuated the underlying incompetence, for Pakistan could not make its indigenous vaccine despite announcements to that effect.

Pakistan had to borrow vaccine doses in drums from China and fill the vials with them to administer. The reason for the incompetence of Pakistan’s medical researchers is that they are not trained to practise creativity and produce original ideas encompassing research questions and research methodologies to perform medical research.

Instead, they are trained to copy and paste ideas from other researchers around the world. This is how the birth of research quackery has blunted the local talent. Even professors of medical universities are involved in the malpractice and overlook the same wrongdoing by their research students.

In 2016, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) updated the mandatory universal guidelines, called the International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research Involving Humans.

Both the WHO and the CIOMS made it mandatory that the principles of ethical research set forth in these guidelines should not only be followed strictly in performing research experiments internationally, these should also be upheld in the ethical review of research protocols internationally.

The main objective was to enhance and maintain the quality standards of research. In Pakistan, however, even renowned professors in the field of medical research are found involved in performing research of compromised quality by not following these ethical guidelines. Perhaps, most professors do not know if any such guidelines exist.

In March 2020, before the Covid-19 set its foot in Pakistan, I thought it appropriate to seek the help of the higher judiciary to implement the mandatory universal guidelines. I filed a writ petition (25760/20) in the Lahore High Court (LHC) which sought the reply of the Punjab’s Minister for Health at the time, Dr Yasmin Rashid, who did not submit any response despite several reminders and two contempt of court applications.

The court hearing the case could not hold her to account, and she overlooked the significance of the international ethical guidelines for health-related research. This is despite the fact that the government she represented made claims about reforms.

Unfortunately, the reforms are not part of the medical research sector which surely is to the disadvantage of the future medical researchers of Pakistan. The tragedy is that political parties raise expectations before the elections, but then tend to underperform after winning the elections. Medical research is one victim of this malicious tendency.

Dr Qaisar Rashid
Lahore

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2022