Questions about stem cell research at AIIMS

An anonymous commenter has posted the contents of an e-mail message raising some strong ethical concerns about the stem cell research at AIIMS. You may recall that this work is already the subject of a different ethics inquiry as the researchers published the same work in two different journals.

These comments come from an anonymous source, and I have no way of verifying their validity -- if any of you can do that, please e-mail me (or, blog your findings). Further, it's entirely possible that the AIIMS researchers have answered some or all of the criticism (though one allegation -- that they have tried some procedure without establishing its effectiveness in animals -- is pretty damaging). At this point, I just want to point to the comment, as the ethical issues raised there are quite serious.

Towards the end of that comment, there's also something about the callous way in which clinical trials are conducted in India. This, again, is something that is well known.

All in all, it's a pretty grim way to start the day ...