In addition to knowing about and treating their poison-ravaged bodies, the people in Bhopal need research to know what lies in store for the children born to gas-affected and contamination-affected parents. Right to knowledge: A Bhopal gas tragedy survivor sitting in protest in New Delhi. India is considered to be the third largest scientific humanpower, yet some of the most basic information on the Bhopal disaster remains unavailable even after 23 years. While government scientific agencies remain oblivious to this, the victims continue to struggle for such knowledge. Sitting in Jantar Mantar after an 800-kilometre walk are 50 victims of the Union Carbide gas disaster demanding that the Prime Minister who set up the Knowledge Commission set up an empowered commission on Bhopal for medical research and health monitoring. In 1985, some among the women padyatris had marched to the local government hospital, holding bottles of urine. They demanded that doctors examine their bodies to see if they should carry on or terminate their pregnancies. They expected the doctors to test the amount of thiocyanate in their urine for an evaluation of the toxins circulating in their bodies. They wanted them to administer sodium thiosulphate injection so that they could excrete some of the toxins they had involuntarily inhaled on that terrible night. They were worried that they might give birth to children with defects. The women were denied medical tests and advice, and police chased them away with sticks. Ironically, this happened in March 1985 when medical researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research were carrying on a double blind clinical trial to test the efficacy of sodium thiosulphate as a detoxificant for the gas exposed. Teratogenic effect While the fears of the women regarding the teratogenic effect of Union Carbide's gases were realised soon after, the results of the clinical trial by the ICMR took 22 years to be published. Its conclusion