Tribal girls in Khammam killed by drug trial.

The death of three Tribal girls living in a common hostel who were administered the cervical cancer vaccine in Khammam district has shaken the Tribal community in Khammam region. The girls, 13-year old Sarita, 13-year old Sodi Sayamma and a third girl with no history of medical illness, were administered the vaccine against the HPV virus called Gardasil few months ago.

On January 23, 30,000 Tribal girls between the ages of 10 and 14 years in Khammam district and Gujarat's Vadodara district were being administered a cervical cancer vaccine in a ‘demonstration project’.
District immunity officer, Khammam, confronted with Tribal communities calling the deaths as suicides. ‘Post-mortems show that these are suicide deaths. Fifteen thousand Tribal girls between the ages of 10-14 have been administered three doses of cervical cancer vaccine at Rs 9,000 each. Then why only three dead,’ questioned the officer.

But activists interfacing with these girls pointed out that girls were developed side effects like diarrhoea, nausea, allergies and epileptic attacks before death.

Silly comment by this officer is that, they took the written consent of the girls' parents before administering this vaccine. What could Tribal communities know about written consent? An Activist Kalpana who has been tracking this case for the last eight months pointed out that the written consent signed by the parents remains completely one-sided. It states that the vaccine has no side effects, creates life long immunity and will not create any health problems for their child.