When Health Minister C.P. Thakur criticised his colleague Maneka Gandhi for her perceived attempts to hamper research by raising issues of cruelty to animals, he would have hardly expected his remarks to go unchallenged. And they didn’t. As expected, Maneka has reacted sharply to Dr Thakur’s criticism, saying that she was being wrongly portrayed as someone irrationally trying to hamper research. The ministers’ war of words has its origin in a report filed by members of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) that documented the abysmal conditions under which animals were housed in the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. Following the report, the Department of Animal Welfare reportedly ordered the NIV to put a stop to animal experiments. The Health Minister responded to Maneka’s concern about animals in the laboratories by declaring in a press conference yesterday that it was a ‘little too optimistic’ to aspire for world-class animal housing facilities in a country where even the human populace is without food and shelter. Maneka, in turn, said in a letter to The Indian Express today that contrary to propaganda, she was not the only one responsible for the recent developments. ‘‘There is a misconception that Maneka Gandhi, in her capacity as Minister for Animal Welfare, runs the CPCSEA and it is packed with animal welfare people,’’ she said. Describing the composition of the CPCSEA, she said the committee has Health Secretary, Drug Controller and the Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research, as its members. ‘‘The Health Minister should know that his own officials are part of the committee whose report highlighted the pathetic conditions under which animals are kept in the NIV. Why am I being portrayed as someone trying to stop research,’’ Maneka said. ‘‘The CPCSEA has never stopped any research or experiment. It has only questioned the wasteful expenditure done on duplicating and irrelevant research and for grants that are being misused in the name of science,’’ she said in her letter.
