By M H Ahssan
Ads are the basement of an easy home business, no easy home business can exist without sales, and every sale begins with some kind of advertising.
So the ad copy must be good enough to make potential buyers buy.
Does advertising always succeed?
NO!
And the credit for the success, or the blame for the failure of almost all ads, reverts back to the ad copy itself.
What does an ad look for? Generally, the "ad copy writer" wants one of the following:
* That you visit the store to see and judge the product for yourself
* That you immediately buy the merchandise being advertised by the ad
* That you phone for an appointment to hear the full sales presentation
* That you ask for further information (which amounts to the same thing).
The bottom line is always the same: To make the reader buy the product or service.
As an "ad copy writer" you must know exactly what you want that your customers do.
BASIC RULES FOR WRITING CLASSIFIED ADS AND SALES LETTERS
* A classified ad and a sales letter must be read to stimulate sales
* A classified ad and a sales letter must be seen, so it can be read
* A classified ad and a sales letter must command or grab the attention of the reader
* Your knowledge and practice of these basic rules will determine the extent of your success as an ad copywriter and an easy home business owner.
HOW TO WRITE CLASSIFIED ADS AND SALES LETTERS
Classified ads are small, relatively inexpensive, many times free in Internet, and give the beginner an opportunity to advertise his product or service without losing his shirt if things don't go how he expected.
Many people look classified ads when they wish to find a product or a service, that's why they are a great means of promotion for any Internet business, if you learn how to use them.
How do you put free classified ads in The Web? Just look for "classifieds" or "classified ads" in a search engine (i.e. www.hotbot.com) and then look for a link that might say "announce" "place an ad" "post free ads" "free ads" etc. Sometimes you won't find the link in the home page and you will find it after you choose one of the categories (i.e. "business opportunities", "Internet marketing", "home business", "jobs", etc.)
What kind of results can you expect from a classified ad? A good ad will bring you people interested in your product or service, from these prospects (potential clients) you might get up to 1 sale for every 10 - 30 of them, if you follow up them properly in the next months. Prospects and Customer's follow up has some special rules that are explained here: http://www.easy-home-business.com/improve/sales-follow-up.php
It is important to be aware that writing classified ads and sales letters is a promotion system that will not give you immediate results, but in the next months.
Classified ads are important because they let you reach a market niche that you won't be able to find other way. That's why every prospect that you get through this means is a great treasure.
The trick of writing classified ads is to put as many classified ads as you can. You can do that one by one in free places like my Free Classified Ads web page, or with good automation software like Becanada
HOW MANY FREE CLASSIFIED ADS MUST YOU PUT?
Do not expect good results with your easy home business with classified ads placed on less than 200 sites.
The ideal is to have 5 to 10 different classified ads and place them in different categories (business opportunities, home jobs, etc.) but the most important part is the quality of your classified ad. One good classified ad will give you much more customers than 10 bad classified ads.
If everyday you put your classified ad in 6 different places, in a month you will have 180 and in a couple of months your classified ad's campaign will be really working.
To put a classified ad will take you from 7 to 10 minutes each, for 6 classified ads you will need to work 1 hour per day. With an automation program like Becanada this will take you not more than a couple of hours a month. You can read more about Becanada here: http://www.becanada.com/$/?rbsoftwa@kagi.com
THE HEADLINE OF YOUR CLASSIFIED ADS AND THE TITLE OF YOUR SALES LETTERS
The headline of a newspaper, it says the same that's said in the main article; and a classified ad, is a condensed form of a large ad.
The headline and/or the lead sentence of an ad are the most important parts of the ad. The title is the most important part of a sales letter.
When your classified ad is surrounded by hundreds of other classified ads, the only thing that will make anyone read your classified ad is that you can "grab" their attention and entice them to read.
If you don't capture the attention of your reader with your headline or sales letter title, anything beyond it is useless effort and wasted money.
What happens if you don't have a headline? In classified ads, your first three to five words serve as your headline.
What should you say in your headline or sales letter title?
* Ask a question. A question seem to attract the reader's attention, and one he sees the question, he just can't seem to keep himself from reading the rest of the classified ad to find out the answer. I.e.: "Do You Suffer From These Symptoms?"
* Appeal to the envy. "You'll be the envy of your friends" is a "reader appeal" that you can use whenever appropriate, because everyone wants to be well thought of, and will read into the body of your classified ad copy to find out how he can gain the respect he wants.
* Use colloquialisms wherever and whenever possible, use words that are not usually found in advertisements. The idea is to shock or shake the reader move him to take notice of your classified ad. For example: "Are You Developing A POT BELLY?"
* Use comparative price headlines: "Three For Only $3, Regularly $3 Each!"
* Offer a strong guarantee: "We give you an year to try, and your money back if you don't earn $50,000"
* Offer status and prestige this appeals to the necessity of belonging to a special group, or recognition necessity
* You: Whenever, and as often as you can use the word "You" in your headline, and throughout your classified ad copy. Your classified ad should be directed to "one" person, and the person reading your classified ad likes to feel that you're talking to him personally. Whenever you sit down to write an ad copy you should picture yourself in a one-on-one situation and "talk" to your reader just as if he where in front of you.
* Don't get cute: People care much less for the art of the classified ad than for the benefits they will get if they buy. So don't put in it a lot of unrelated graphics and artwork. All graphics or artwork you use should be relevant to your product, its use and/or the copy you've written about it. Graphics should not be used as artistic touches, or to create an atmosphere.
RULES OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION
* Know your audience
* Know what your audience wants
* Make a clear statement that they will get what they want if they answer your ad
* Put a time limit to your irresistible offer
* People that read classified ads and sales letters have only one idea in mind:
WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?
* People read classified ads and sales letters to fulfill their needs and desires, so if they don't receive a clear image of the solid benefit they will receive from your classified ad or sales letter, they will pass it buy.
The vast majority of the classified ads and sales letters that you can read, say things like: "we are here", "we are great", "here's what we've got". It's no wonder why hardly anyone responds to them: they are not answering the most important question for your potential customers: "What's in it for me?"
BASIC STRUCTURE OF A CLASSIFIED AD or A SALES LETTER
You want your target prospect to take immediate action.
If you don't ask for action, you don't get action; so the basic structure of your classified ad should be: You'll get this benefit if you act now!
Everything else in the classified ad is an elaboration of this point. If you classified ad testimonies or images, they must talk about the benefit that the prospect will reach if he acts now!
WORK HARD YOUR BENEFITS
The average person is very aware that you are making a pitch in an effort to get his money, so the first thing they will feel is that you will lie if you need, in order to get their money.
So you must know that your prospects are on guard against you, and the only thing they want to know is what will they get from it, and you must show this right away in the clearest way you can find.
You must show your benefits using FACTS, not making general claims as "excellence guaranteed". Instead of saying "we have the fastest service" say "all products shipped same day of purchase". So you must take a look of each feature you have listed about your product, and make it a FACT.
FEATURES: Are descriptive words about your easy home business product or service: its color, size, weights, operating parameters and so on.
Your classified ad should not say how your product is, but what it will get for the people who buy it
No classified ad works using an offer without benefits as the primary ammunition!
WHAT TO OFFER IN A CLASSIFIED AD AND A SALES LETTER
The best offer is FREE. People are addicted to getting something for nothing. So in order to motivate your audience you must offer them something for free. What can you offer?
* A free trial
* Your brochure
* Sales literature
* A special report
* A subscription to your newsletter
* Whatever you have and can send out at minimal cost.
But it's not enough to say "We will give you FREE our Internet Marketing booklet" you rather say "We will give you FREE an Internet Marketing booklet that will show you how to earn $ 2000 in only 23 days". Show the benefit!
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A CLASSIFIED AD
In most cases you can't expect to make a sale with a small classified ad, you can only motivate an action that will eventually finish in a sale.
What kind of action can you motivate:
* Elicit prospect inquiry
* Obtain prospect's e-mail address
ADVERTISING ATTRIBUTES
CONCENTRATION: Advertise in the same place time after time, until the ad starts to get response rather than placing it every time in a different place.
REACH: You want your ad to reach as many people as possible
FREQUENCY: Most people will not respond to your ad until they have seen it not less than 6 times. True absorption of your message will result only from repetition.
WHAT DOES PEOPLE WANT
People generally want one of more of the following things:
* Better health
* More comfort
* More money
* More leisure time
* More popularity
* Greater beauty
* Success
* Security.
So this is exactly what you must tell them that they are going to get, if they opt for your product or service
TEST YOUR CLASSIFIED ADS
You should never stop testing to reach good results with your classified ads, and the way to do it is:
Run the same classified ad in different places
Ask your customers what prompted to buy from you
Test the same classified ad with different headlines
THE SALES LETTER AND CLASSIFIED AD'S BODY
Once you have your reader's attention, you must follow with:
A quick enumeration of the benefits he can gain.
Try to put into your prospect shoes, and ask yourself: If I were reading this classified ad, what are the things that would appeal to me?
Write your copy to appeal to your reader's wants and emotional needs. Writing good advertising copy is nothing more or less than knowing "who" your buyers are; recognizing what he wants; and then telling him how your product will fulfill each of those wants.
Present the proven FACTS of your product (the more facts, the more credible the offer)
People want facts and/or excuses for buying a product - to justify to themselves and others, so you must help them to do it. You must assure him for his good judgment in the final decision to buy.
People tend to believe the things that appeal to their individual desires, fears and other emotions. In other words people believe what they "want" to believe, it's up to you to support his initial desire.
Reiterate the advantages, comfort and happiness he'll enjoy
Once you finish presenting facts, test results, sales figures, and/or other customer's testimonials summarize everything you've presented and then get into your demand for action.
Make them feel they already own the product
Draw a mental picture for your potential buyer. Let him imagine owning the product. Induce him to visualize all of the benefits you've promised. Give him the keys to seeing himself richer, enjoying luxury, having time to do whatever he'd like to do, and with all of his dreams fulfilled.
ASK FOR ACTION; DEMAND THE MONEY!
Lots of classified ads are beautiful, almost perfectly written, and quite convincing - yet they fail to ask for or demand action from the reader. If you want the reader to have your product, then tell him so and demand that he send his money now. Demand that he complete the sale now, by taking action now - by calling a telephone number and ordering, or by writing his check and rushing it to the post office.
Offer a bonus package
It will help you to induce action if you offer a big bonus package - absolutely free, simply for acting immediately! And Internet is full of free things you can give to your customers to tempt them. Offering a reward of some kind will almost always stimulate the prospect to take action. Many could just sign because of the reward, but if you ask them their e-mail address, you'll have the opportunity to follow up them and convince them about your main product. Of course the reward offered should be closely related to your product, or you'll get the wrong prospects.
Offer a solid guaranty
Another thing that will help a lot is a good guaranty like "If you're not satisfied, simply return the product and we'll quickly refund your money!"
Specify a time limit.
Tell your prospect that he must act within a certain time limit or lose out on the bonus, face probably higher prices, or even the withdrawal of your offer.
This is always a good hook to get action.
Make it easy
The easier you make it for him to respond, the more responses you'll get!
Once you do become proficient in writing your easy home business classified ads, you must never stop "noticing" how classified ads are written, designed and put together by other people. To stop learning would be comparable to shutting yourself off from the rest of the world.
Keep a copy of every good classified ad that you see and study it. You must keep yourself up-to-date, aware of, and in-the-know about the other guy - his innovations, style changes, and the methods he's using to sell his products.
If you do things properly you will get hundreds, thousands of prospect's reply. And how will you make them become your customers? With a good follow up campaign. And for that you will need a MLM Builder: http://www.easy-home-business.com/improve/networkmarketing.php
"AIDA" AD STEPS TO SUCCESS
I'm now going to show you step by step how to write a successful classified ad. Your classified ad should follow the mental process called AIDA. (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
ATTENTION
Your classified ad's main objective is to obtain a customer, but in order to do so; the first thing you need is to catch his attention. And how do you catch people's attention? With a good Title, a good Headline, or a good first paragraph.
There are many ways to call the attention explained in my Headlines chapter:
INTEREST
Once you have your prospect's ATTENTION you must drive him to your web site or obtain his e-mail address in order to be able to show him the whole easy home business (you can't do that in a short ad). The Title or Headline only gives them the reason why they should visit or want to hear more from you. You should give them the e-mail address where they can ask for more details, or your Internet's web site address.
How can you arise your prospect's Interest? Here you must use a strong phrase (not more than two) Remember that your objective is not to make a sale, but to make the people visit your web site.
What will catch your prospect attention? Your USP your Unique Selling Proposition that is The Main Benefit your clients can obtain from your product or service You can make your USP with an interrogative phrase like "Do you want to have a fastest Internet connection", a positive phrase "The fastest connection to Internet" or just trying to arouse curiosity. "Are you fast enough?"
You must offer your prospects something they would like to have to satisfy a real need or you must build their need and then offer your product.
DESIRE
Desire in classified ads works exactly as in sales letters!
The question now is: Does your prospect desire your product?
As there is no way for you to know the answer of this question, you must do all that you can to write your sales letter, in a way that make the answer an YES.
HOW CAN YOU AROUSE YOUR PROSPECT'S DESIRE?
Your sales letter must show your product advantages! Not only make clear what you prospect will get from it, make her imagine herself having those advantages
If she can imagine herself having those advantages, she wouldn't want to live any longer without them. But you must be careful! Many people confuse features with advantages, and this is a great mistake that can cost you a fortune!
It's not the same a sales letter that says "Our carpet renovator has 30% of silicones;" than "With our carpet renovator you will have the most beautiful carpets of your whole neighborhood. Everybody will ask you where did you get them"
Make your prospect live the advantages in a way she can't live without them.
"With our carpet renovator, you won't care if your grandson plays with the dog over the carpet, after they came from the garden, because you know you'll be able to clean it, in only 10 minutes and with ease
Imagine that you spill an ink pot in the middle of your carpet. What will it happen?
You will just dry it and keep on doing what you are doing, and when you are done, you will be able to clean it as new, in only 10 minutes, and without rubbing it!
You will be able to see that our carpet renovator dissolves the stains in front of your eyes!
Can you image the tranquility that you'll have, knowing that it doesn't matter what anyone spill in your carpet, you will always be able to clean it with ease?
You will not only feel tranquil, you will feel absolutely save!
Our enterprise is at your service, our goal is to make your life easier, our best guaranty is our customer's satisfaction"
To arouse desire with your sales letter, call the senses, make your prospect "feel", "see", "hear", "smell" and "taste" the advantages that your product or service will give her.
Then your sales letter must talk about your enterprise commitment with your customers.
Talk with your heart, and sincerely, that will give you the best results.
ACTION
Once you have their Interest you must make them visit your web site or ask for more, do explain precisely what they must do. And the best you can do is:
* Write a hypertext link to your web site and ask: CLICK HERE
* If you are sending an e-mail the easiest is to ask: REPLY
* If you use a banner, just ask for a click over the banner
EXPOSURE AND REPETITION
In order to have success with a classified ad and or a sales letter, you must put it in as many places as you can, so the biggest possible number of people can see it, and it must constantly be repeated.
Exposure and Repetition are the keys to sales letter and classified ads success!
If your classified ad has a success rate of 5% (every 100 people that see your ad, 5 visit your web site) If you show your ad to 10,000 people once, you will receive 500 visitors. If you show it to 100.000 people you will get 5.000 visitors. And if you show it to 10 million people, you will get 500.000 visitors to your web site and thousands of sales.
Why should you repeat the exposure? It's very easy to answer. If you show your ad once to 10 million people, you will get 500.000 visitors and if you show the same ad to the same 10 million people twice, you will get 1.000.000 visitors.
The secret of any ad is the repetition, the more the people see it, the more they believe in it. And the same happens with your sales letters.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query special report. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query special report. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, July 02, 2010
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Special Report: ADR Complaint On Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI (M), NCP And BSP Yet To Appoint PIOs Under RTI Act
Association for Democratic Reforms has filed a complaint to the Central Information Commission (CIC) to take action against Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI (M), NCP and BSP.
ADR, which along with right to information (RTI) activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal has been campaigning for the six national political parties to come under RTI, after having procured sensational documents under RTI Act pointing that these parties are ‘public authorities’. They are now asking the Central Information Commission (CIC) for action against these political parties since they have not abided by CIC’s 3 June 2013 verdict (CIC/SM/C/2011/001386 & 000838 dated 3 June 2013) of directing all these parties to appoint Public Information Officers (PIOs) within six weeks.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Special Report: Worshiped Inside Temples, But Mistreated Outside: The Fate Of Captive Elephants In India
Outside the main entrance stood an elephant tethered to a tree, flapping its ears serenely, munching palm leaves and bananas. It was a majestic creature, easily the largest I had ever encountered, with its long trunk and gleaming tusks. A small crowd of excited onlookers watched with awe and took pictures from all possible angles.
Saturday, February 02, 2013
Clinical Trials: Storm in the Medicine Chest
In 2005, Rajkumar Tiwari, a clerk at a transport company in Indore, had a son. The mother and child were doing well, and Tiwari was happy. At the end of the first month, his wife took the baby to Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, a children’s hospital attached to Indore’s largest public hospital, for what they thought was a routine inoculation. She was made to sign a few papers, after which the baby was given two injections on his heel by paediatrician Dr Hemant Jain. Within 24 hours, their child was dead.
Ashish Jatav was luckier. A day after his son was born, the embroidery worker received a call from the same hospital asking him to bring the child. His wife and mother took the child there, where he was given what Jatav thinks was “some kind of polio vaccine” by Dr Jain. In all, the child received “either three or four” doses. That was in 2008.
Tiwari put his son’s death down to fate. “I didn’t even try to contact the hospital,” he says. And Jatav didn’t make any further enquiries about the vaccine his son had received.
That’s where matters would have rested had it not been for a question on clinical trials that cropped up in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly in late 2010. In response, the health department submitted a list of 81 people who had been enrolled in clinical trials between 2006 and 2010. That, shockingly, is how Tiwari and Jatav realised that their children had been used as guinea pigs in clinical trials.
The papers their illiterate wives had been made to sign had been passed off as the ‘informed consent’ that is required from participants in clinical trials. They had been given no verbal explanations, nor were they given copies of the documents they had signed. They had trusted the doctors of Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, the city’s largest public children’s hospital.
Investigations by the state government and RTI requests from activists revealed that Dr Jain was conducting these trials for Panacea Biotec, a large Delhi-based pharmaceutical company. Jatav’s son was given drops of an untested polio vaccine, and according to PD Karan of Panacea, Tiwari’s son got the Haemophilus influenzae type B conjugate vaccine.
In its defence, Panacea claims that all participants in their trials were given consent forms in Hindi, which were subsequently approved by the hospital’s ethics committee.
The company says that of the 640 children involved, three died during the trials. Panacea claims that none of the deaths was related directly to the trials.
However, Panacea was not the only company for which Dr Jain was running trials. According to a report by the Madhya Pradesh government’s Economic Offences Wing, he conducted clinical trials on 2,500 patients for a number of different companies between 2006 and 2010. There were 18 deaths during the course of these trials, none of which was investigated by any independent agency.
Dr Jain, a government doctor, was paid Rs 1.7 crore for the trials. Not a penny of that went to the hospital. Dr Jain says he is “not interested in answering any questions”.
“We might be poor,” says Tiwari angrily, “but even the poorest wouldn’t subject their children to a trial vaccine.”
India emerged as a global pharma destination in 2005 when it amended patent laws to recognise product patents. Also amended were the rules that required foreign companies to conduct clinical trials in India only after they had successfully completed trials abroad. Now, companies could conduct trials in India concurrently and use clinical trial data generated in India for their patent applications abroad.
The clinical trial market burgeoned, growing from almost non-existent to one that the Boston Consulting Group estimates is now worth $400 million a year.
However, India’s regulatory infrastructure and the laws governing the pharma sector had not changed significantly. They were completely inadequate to control an industry that had been growing at over 20 percent every year.
As new details emerged in Madhya Pradesh, the issue simmered. Anand Rai of Indore-based NGO Swasth Samarpan Seva Samiti tried to get in touch with all the 81 participants, and filed RTI requests to unearth more details about the trials.
Then, last January, Swasthya Adhikar Manch, another Indore-based NGO, filed a case in the Supreme Court alleging that the Madhya Pradesh government had allowed completely unregulated, large-scale clinical trials of a whole array of drugs. In a writ petition, it alleged that many other states had done the same. It wanted the Union health ministry to provide details about the number of people enrolled in clinical trials, the number of deaths and the compensation given.
And that cracked open the anarchic can of worms that the pharma establishment in India (both government and private) had become. It was going to be a year of more revelations and indictments. What happened in Madhya Pradesh had also happened in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and many other states.
The chaos in clinical trials, it emerged, was mirrored by regulatory laxity in drug control and the government’s tacit submission to various vested interests on intellectual property issues.
The blowback was swift. The furore on clinical trials was followed by a scathing Parliamentary Committee report on the functioning of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), the apex body for drug approval and the regulation of clinical trials in the country.
At the same time, the Indian Patent Office rejected a number of major patent applications of pharma MNCs, and issued the first compulsory licence for the manufacture of a drug in India. This lead to a drastic reduction in the prices of critical drugs used to treat diseases like cancer.
The government also took a conservative stand on FDI in pharma, unlike what it was doing in most other sectors. The Department of Pharmaceuticals introduced a new drug price control system, the first amendment since 1994.
In the meantime, the Planning Commission was working on a broader canvas, suggesting changes that would refocus India’s health policy in the 12th Five Year Plan period (2012-17) on public health. The individual regulatory processes had started earlier, but in 2012, the strands coalesced into what will hopefully become a comprehensive net.
Everyone in the pharma industry has been affected. In a departure from the norm, the three government departments that handle pharma issues — the ministries of health; chemicals and fertilisers; and commerce — have spurred into action.
Pressure from civil society and the SC’s intervention has set into motion a series of regulatory changes in the pharma establishment that will have far-reaching consequences, determining the path of the industry over the next decade.
“It was the year when drugs took centrestage,” says Dr Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, who has worked with the government, the WHO and a number of private research organisations on health policy. “Public consciousness has been raised, and today more than ever before, there is demand for better control and availability of medicines and the rational use of drugs.”
But greater government regulation has meant reduced profits for the pharma industry, and that has not gone down well. So rattled is the industry that Tapan Ray, the head of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, hopes that “what happened in 2012 will not be a general trend in the future”.
Unfortunately for him, the ball has already been set rolling. What started last year is gathering pace, and will be refined by a series of reports and court orders that are expected. It’s leading to greater transparency and accountability in the government’s health regulation and in the private medical and pharma industry.
When Rai filed an RTI request with the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) asking for data on clinical trials, he was first stonewalled. Then emerged a smorgasbord of conflicting data. All of it seemed to point in one direction.
Not only did the apex drug control body (of which the DCGI is the head) not maintain a central database of clinical trial deaths, but there was little monitoring of trials or the compensation paid to victims who suffered serious adverse drug reactions. This was despite the fact that all clinical trials post 2009 are required to be registered on the Clinical Trials Registry.
That the monitoring of clinical trials had been almost non-existent became obvious by the end of 2012, as the government pulled out different, often conflicting data.
According to the DCGI, there had been 2,031 deaths during clinical trials between 2008 and 2011. 668 of these had taken place in 2010, of which 22 were directly related to clinical trials. In these cases, the companies conducting the trials had paid varying compensations, but the DCGI was not aware of the amounts.
The ethics committees overseeing clinical trials were responsible for deciding whether a death was related directly to it. In a clear conflict of interest, these committees were, according to Rai, “composed of members from the institutions where the trials were being held”.
The DCGI did not furnish data for the other years. “The data of respective trial sites and their respective states is not maintained by this directorate,” it averred. No action has been taken against the drug companies, clinical trial research organisations or the hospitals involved.
In the meantime, other data emerged in an answer given by Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in response to a question in Parliament. According to him, there were 16 deaths each in 2009 and 2011. Compensation had been paid in all cases that occurred in 2011.
The government had no rules on compensation to the victims of clinical trails, therefore the money doled out by the companies in all these cases had been at their discretion.
Yet more data emerged from the case filed by Swasthya Adhikar Manch in the SC. In an affidavit filed on 3 January by R Chandarashekar of CDSCO, the government claimed that between 1 January 2005 and 30 June 2012, there had been 2,644 deaths during clinical trials. Of these, 80 were directly due to the trials. Compensation had been paid in the 40 cases that occurred in 2008-11; and the agency was “now ascertaining the status of such cases pertaining to the year 2005 onwards”.
The figures from all the sources above were at variance. Azad’s reply in Parliament put the deaths in 2009-11 at 54, whereas the CDSCO affidavit put it at 40 for a longer period!
A similar state of confusion prevailed when it came to the number of patients enrolled in clinical trials across India.
Those who had suffered serious adverse reactions were completely ignored. The CDSCO affidavit put their numbers at 11,972 (for the same period), of which it stated that 506 were related to clinical trials. The CDSCO was not aware if any compensation had been paid in these cases.
Matters only got murkier.
Not only did the drug controller not have any reliable data on clinical trials, Azad’s reply revealed that it had conducted only 23 inspections of trial sites and companies in 2008-12. Shockingly, during this period, the same agency had allowed the clinical trials of 1,544 drugs.
All this had worked in favour of the growing clinical trial industry with clinical trials of drugs that Mira Shiva of the All India Drug Action Network says are “largely irrelevant to India”.
India was a cheap destination for pharma MNCs to conduct clinical trials (for drugs to be marketed abroad), and there was a huge pool of people to be used.
Ironically, while on the one hand these clinical trials were growing, the drug control agency was increasingly letting pharma firms introduce new drugs in India without conducting mandatory clinical trials.
In a May 2012 report, which Dr Chaudhury calls “remarkable” and “unprecedented” for its brutal honesty, a Parliamentary Standing Committee pointed out these glaring violations.
Randomly scrutinising the approval of 42 new drugs given by CDSCO, the committee found that files for three controversial drugs were untraceable.
Of the remaining 39 for which the files did exist, 11 drugs were not put through mandatory phase III trials. Thirteen drugs were not approved for sale in any major developed country (including Buclizine, a controversial appetite stimulant for children) and had no “special relevance to India”. For 25 drugs, approval had not been taken from medical experts.
In all, the regulator had waived the mandatory clinical trial requirement for 31 drugs between January 2008 and October 2010. This included Ambrisentan, a hypertension medication manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, and Colistimethate, an antibiotic made by Cipla, which were likely to be used widely.
More worryingly, it pointed out that most of “expert opinions” justifying the waivers were “written by the invisible hands of drug manufacturers and experts merely obliged by putting their signatures”.
“The clinical trial system was a complete mess,” says Sakthivel Selvaraj, a health economist at the New Delhi-based Public Health Foundation of India.
As these revelations emerged, the government was forced to act. The CDSCO put out guidelines regulating the ethics committees overseeing clinical trials. The guidelines stipulate that the committees should have at least seven members, including some who are independent of the institution conducting the trial, besides one layperson (not from the medical establishment). It also required the committees to be registered with the state or central licensing authority.
There were also guidelines for the compensation for injuries and deaths related to clinical trials. These took into account the patient’s age, earning capacity and the extent of injury.
The onus of proving that an injury or death was not due to the clinical trial was transferred to the sponsor, and a time frame stipulated within which the victim was to be compensated. Ethics committees were now required to report all adverse reactions to the regulator.
A whole slew of New Drug Advisory Committees were also constituted to advise the CDSCO on the approval of clinical trials and new drugs. Clinical trials of new drugs would now have to be approved by a separate committee controlled by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
In its order on 3 January, the SC was even more restrictive, directing that all clinical trial applications be temporarily approved by the health ministry secretary.
A government panel set up to look into the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s allegations on the approval of new drugs has submitted its report, which is yet to be made public. VM Katoch, head of this committee and director-general of ICMR, did not respond to emails and phone calls.
Predictably, the pharma and clinical trial industry is worried. Anil Raghavan, head of the Indian operations of Quintiles, a large MNC contract research and clinical trial company, finds these changes disturbing. “These are knee-jerk solutions to societal concerns,” he says. “They have caused confusion and concern in the industry about the intent and direction of government policy.”
A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Confederation of Indian Industries reiterates this stating that as a result of these changes and the consequent delays in clinical trial approvals “some contract research organisations are looking to increase focus on other geographies”.
That wouldn’t be cause for concern in the case of clinical trials of drugs that are not relevant to India, but it could lead to significant delays in the introduction of important drugs manufactured by MNCs.
In the long run, this regulatory churn seems inevitable, almost overdue. It’s the first step to a more radical and comprehensive overhaul. “Making these changes in our system is very difficult,” says Chaudhury, “this is the start of a process that will play out across the next decade.”
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Special Report: Indian Celebrities on 'Surrogacy Spree'
By Rashmi Kalia / Chandigarh
Surrogate
babies are in news, all thanks to the khans of the Bollywood. Not long ago,
surrogacy was a hush-hush affair for childless couples in India, who would
resort to staying low key for a number of months, while they planned a child
through surrogacy, only to announce to the world that they had been blessed
with a baby through natural means.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Special Report: Trafficked Adivasi Tribal Girls In Jharkhand Forced To Surrogate, Deliver Babies For Sale
Phulmani, now 31, was made to breastfeed the children – all born in consecutive years in Delhi – for about six months before giving them to the agents who sold them off.
The resident of Patru village in Gumla district was rescued by rights activists and returned to Jharkhand last year. Her experiences have left her emotionally and physically scarred.
Thursday, May 01, 2014
'European Union Passports on Sale' For Indian FDI Privilege
SPECIAL REPORT “To be born English, is to win first place in the lottery of life”- Cecil Rhodes. These words spoken at the height of the British Empire; clearly emphasise how an individual’s nationality, defined one’s role and the opportunities available to him. Nationality was considered to be a sacred allegiance, a privilege, one that could never be changed or altered and could only be taken away by the government.
Today, however the concept of citizenship has evolved, it is considered more as a property of the individual holder, one with which he can choose to do as he please, to keep or surrender.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Special Report: Shining & Developed Hyderabad A Myth?
Comprehensive Transportation Study Says 64% Of City Yet To Have Proper Facilities. Contrary to claims on development of Hyderabad, only 676 square kilometres (36%) of the erstwhile Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda) area is developed and the remaining 1,212 sq kms (64%) is still undeveloped. Also, the growth of the developed area was just 7% in the past 10 years, which is not even considered ‘rapid growth’ by planning consultants.
The erstwhile Huda area covers about 1,886 sq kms, comprising Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and some surrounding panchayats such as Shamshabad, Manikonda, Poppalguda, Boduppal, Jawaharnagar, Nizampet, Pragatinagar and other areas.
Monday, January 06, 2014
Virgin Births - The Issues Of Surrogacy, The Possibilities Of Artificial Wombs, New Culture Dominating India
SPECIAL REPORT In 1924, evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane coined the term ectogenesis to describe how pregnancy in humans could be provided through an artificial womb. In a fictional account, he had two future scientists describe the birth of the world’s first ectogenic child. “Now that the technique is fully developed, we can take an ovary from a woman, and keep it growing in a suitable fluid for as long as twenty years,” one of the characters announced.
This, by the character’s calculations, would result in “a fresh ovum each month, of which 90 percent can be fertilized, and the embryos grown successfully for nine months”, at which point they could be “brought out into the air”. Haldane imagined that artificial wombs might become so popular by 2074 that only a small minority, “less than 30 percent of children”, would then “be born of woman”.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Buried Treasure: Villagers In Uttarakhand Turn To A Lucrative Fungus To Supplement Regular Income
SPECIAL REPORT Every year, as the snow begins to melt towards the end of April, Mahender Singh Bisht and his friends trek three days from their village of Sai-polo in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon division to fields near the Poting Glacier, about 40 kilometres to the north-west. Here, at an altitude of about 3,800 metres, they spend two or three days crawling on their hands and knees, scouring the ground for the protruding stalks of what is known, in the local Kumaoni, as kira jhar—ghost moth caterpillars attached to the stalks of a fungus that attacks and mummifies them during their underground larval phase.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
New Telengana: Vote For Development Or Out Of Gratitude?
SPECIAL REPORT Perhaps, it far is more difficult to predict the poll outcome in the yet-to-be established state of Telengana, which goes to polls on April 30th, than in the Seemandhra region. In the residual state of Andhra Pradesh, it is a straight fight, a week later, between the TDP-BJP combine and the YSR Congress, with the other contenders, like the Jai Samaikandhra party of former chief minister, N. Kiran kumar Reddy, and his parent-party, the Congress, being also-rans.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Special Report: Gen-Next Food 'Tadka' To Delhi Cuisines
The concept, introduced by Food Talk India, is now being carried out in various restaurants in Delhi. Suchir Suri and Anjali Batra, founders of Food Talk India, explain that while the evening is a great 'bonding' experience, they want it to help break down barriers when it comes to food.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Special Report: 'Muslim' Names Road Signs 'Defaced' In Delhi And Suburbs, Hindu Outfits Takes Responsibility
Signages of roads named after Muslim personalities such as Emperor Akbar and Firozshah, among others, were found defaced late Wednesday. The names have been blackened and posters of right-wing group — Shiv Sena Hindustan — were pasted on them.
Thursday, April 09, 2015
Special Report: Telangana Police In Soup After Alleged 'Fake Encounter' Of Suspected Five 'SIMI Activists'
With grave criminal charges against them, Viqaruddin and his gangsters were certainly no saints but the police’s embarrassing account of the encounter makes them look better. It takes only common sense, as Rights activists point out, to finds the weaknesses in the narrative.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
How Cong Plays 'Politics' With Telangana, Kiran Reddy?
They may be facing an internal dissent and the possibility of Kiran Kumar Reddy walking away but the Congress has no intention of slowing down on the creation of Telangana and hopes to have the new state in place by the 2014 elections. A senior minister as saying that they have been given the go ahead by the core committee of the Congress, and Kiran Kumar Reddy has been told to fix the dates for the special session of the state Assembly to clear the Telangana Bill.
Monday, May 20, 2013
SPECIAL REPORT: MBAs FOR INDIA'S RURAL WOMEN
Dressed in a bright red shimmering sari, Shyamat Hanif Sheikh, a 43-year-old churiwali (bangle vendor) from Sakharwadi village in Maharashtra, is a far cry from most students at a business school.
She has just learnt a basic B-School lesson that customer satisfaction leads to greater profit.
“I never paid attention to this little detail and would not bother much with customers who would walk away without buying anything from me,’’ Ms. Sheikh says. “Now I talk to them politely, sit them down; tell them to try my goods before moving on to others.”
Monday, August 03, 2015
Special Report: Did Mumbai Attacks Mastermind, Pak Terrorist Hafiz Saeed Plan 'Gurdaspur Terror Attack'?
The three terrorists killed in Dinanagar were speaking Punjabi when slain senior Punjab cop Baljit Singh had challenged them to come out in the open before they killed him.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Colours, Pride, Fervour Marks Indian Republic Day In India
The 65th Republic Day was celebrated on Sunday across the country amid tight security and hoisting of the National Tricolour in different states.
West Bengal: In Kolkata Governor M K Narayanan presided over the marchpast of armed and police forces. Colourful parade and procession with decorated tableaux portraying the state’s culture and heritage were highlights of the programme, which was attended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Assam: Assam Governor Janaki Ballav Patnaik today appealed the underground militant groups to abjure violence and come to the discussion table to solve the issues for an overall development of the state. Hoisting the National Flag on the 65th Republic Day here, Patnaik also condemned the recent incidents of violence in many districts across the state. Besides, various initiatives were started under the Multi Sectoral Development Plan in areas like agriculture, cottage industry, drinking water and education to uplift the minority communities.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
A Parallel Conversation: Martyrs, Rebels And Peasants
SPECIAL REPORT The amicable relationship some villagers have with the Maoists, panchayat institutions, as well as large NGOs operating in the vicinity of the villages seems an unusual co-existence in Jharkhand.
It was a weekday when I got a call from Manohar* (name changed), an invite to attend a shahaadat diwas in Chotanagpur region the next day. Two months back, Manohar had helped us get in touch with the CPI(Maoist) for an interview. As he said, shahadat diwas was a day to commemorate martyrdom. I was unsure if it was the rebels' leaders' lives the ceremony was meant to recount, but had little opportunity to ask till I was on the road with him the next day.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Special Report: How Farmers Can Put An End To Suicides?
A farmer committed suicide in the heart of the capital at a rally meant to promise him a better future. I often wonder why we don't hear news of farmers from poorer states such as Bihar committing suicide, and why only those from rich states like Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat choose to end their lives.
To a large extent, I feel, farmers in Bihar depend on subsistence farming - they grow vegetables and cereals on most of their land.
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