to the wider scientific community or even the general public. timely publication of epidemiological data is vital to understanding the spectrum of gas-related disease and provision of health services. icmr's first comprehensive reports appeared more than twenty years after the disaster, thus rendering them merely an academic exercise. the bhopal medical community was faced with 1) the urgent health care needs of the affected community, 2) the non-availability of toxicological and accident-related information, 3) the extreme sensitivity of local and national government bodies toward all aspects of the disaster, 4) lack of expertise, and 5) the lack of funds available to independent researchers to conduct investigations. faced with lawsuits and the prospect of bankruptcy, union carbide's efforts to keep open channels of communication were highly inadequate to address these issues and were considered by many to be a major human rights violation. in addition, the transnational political and legal ramifications served to throw a veil of secrecy around the disaster, thus impeding the discovery of essential pieces of information. medical, toxicological, and accident-analysis data were not made public, thereby frustrating the efforts of the medical community to understand the linkage between exposures and health effects and devise appropriate treatment strategies. as an example, the lack of information about whether mic could thermally decompose to hydrocyanic acid led to years of contentious debate on the merits of treating the gas victims for cyanide poisoning and an unfortunate violation of patient confidentiality. koplan et al. indicated that post-disaster epidemiologic studies should accurately estimate exposure to enable correct dose-response relationship modeling. these data are needed for a) identifying ill and exposed persons, b) determining long-term effects, and c) linking exposure and effects for use in litigation and to determine compensation. in the absence of the above modeling, studies on bhopal victims will suffer from the limitation that the link between exposure and health effects cannot be easily made. working with other agencies recognising that bhopal is a tragic model of an industrial epidemic, members of imcb have expressed willingness to organise international teams when requested, to provide technical assistance and evaluation of other environmental disasters. rather than the provision of emergency relief functions, for which there are other organisations such as medecins sans frontieres and the red cross/red crescent, the imcb envisioned three levels: response to communities who appeal on the basis of chronic disability due to a disaster, after its acute phase is over; represent victims at the international level, for example, the world health agency, to recommend legislative changes required to implement the international bill of rights relevant to health and safety, and working to define the appropriate public health investigations to serve the needs of the injured community rather than use the victim community to merely serve the needs of science. the international bill of rights includes: the universal declaration of human rights, proclaimed on 10 dec 1948; the international covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights (1976), and the international covenant on civil and political rights, 1976. the steps to be taken to achieve the full realisation of this right shall include: provision for the reduction of infant deaths and for healthy development of the child; improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene; prevention, treatment, and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases; creation of conditions which would assure to all people medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness, assuring the victims a living, work and social environment conducive to healing of its injuries. to protect these rights, an international body, free of industry and government pressures, and competent to advise on health and safety standards, is required to be able to mediate just and equitable resolution and compensation of damage in the case of unanticipated disasters. members of the imcb imcb members (left to right) drs. gianni tognoni, ingrid eckerman, rosalie bertell, sushma acquilla, birger heinzow and ramana dhara rosalie bertell (canada), gianni tognoni (italy) thomas callendar (usa) jerry havens (usa) v. ramana dhara (usa) birger heinzow (germany) marinus verweij (netherlands) sushma acquilla (uk) paul cullinan (uk) wang zhengang (china) jerzy jaskowski (poland) leonid titov (belarus) ingrid eckerman (sweden), c. sathyamala (india/uk) carbide gas victims' organisations which worked with imcb bhopal gas peedit mahila stationery karmachari sangh bhopal gas peedit mahila udyog sanghatana bhopal group for information & action nirashvrit pension bhogi karmachari sangh zahreeli gas kand sangharsh morcha bhopal gas peedith sangharsh sahayog samiti continuing bhopal-type disasters in india data from the national disaster management agency (ndma) show that 130 significant chemical accidents occurred in the last decade. the accidents resulted in 259 deaths and 563 major injuries. almost 38 years after bhopal, accidents continue to occur in the small, medium, and large-scale industries in the public, private, and transnational corporation sectors. numerous environmental laws, and state and national disaster management agencies were created, with thousands of people being trained in environmental protection. the recurring accidents, though, indicate that industrial safety and protection of the occupational health of its labor force is still wanting. to correct the imbalance of power between citizens and corporations, the imcb has recommended that vital stakeholders like citizen bodies be represented in the local, state, and national agencies dealing with disasters. victims should be compensated for medical, economic, and social harm, and communities should be rehabilitated from the damage caused.