- By now, it’s become so familiar to the Indian citizens about how safety/security aspects related to medicines are ignored that there are no surprises any longer to awaken our exasperated frustration. Our official apathy towards several critical day-to-day administration tasks originates from the casual attitude that has entrenched deeply without showing palpable signs of improvement despite facing severe all round criticism. We know how the general governance structure functions across the country, with a lack of manpower, inadequacy in skills, rampant corruption, and a sense of entitlement pervading among the government servants. The maxim ‘government work is God’s work’ has been relegated to the back burner for decades despite efforts to improve the accountability factor among government servants.
PC: The Times of India
- The nation was aghast at the way the recent turn of events surrounding the brouhaha over the contaminated medicines, especially the cough syrup, caused avoidable deaths of innocent lives. As reported, eight months after children died from consuming toxic tough syrups, the Union Government appears to believe that the recurring problem of contaminated syrups is a matter of classification. If only prescriptions could fix the contaminated medicines problem, we wouldn’t have found ourselves in an extremely embarrassing situation. The Union Government has removed cough syrups from Schedule K, which allowed them to be sold in certain general stores in smaller villages. Now, all cough syrups will require a doctor’s prescription. Is that enough?
PC: Healthline
- Of course, many already do in practice. The moot point to ponder over here is whether prescriptions are expected to solve contamination? How, though? The problem is not how these medicines are sold, but what is being sold. India keeps experiencing fatal DEG (a regulated chemical used in cough syrups) poisoning outbreaks from contaminated cough syrups – the deaths of at least 22 children in Chhindwara, MP, last October being the latest case. Contaminated cough syrups are neither new nor a surprising problem. DEG poisoning has recurred in India since 1972, with similar mass poisonings in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Most distressingly, the Indian-made cough syrups caused mass child deaths in Gambia, Cameroon, and Uzbekistan. Where’s the remedy?
PC: The Hindu
- The diagnosis is long-established, systemic failure. Manufacturing units operate in unregulated conditions. There’s chronic understaffing and consistent inspections, plus there’s corruption. Licences that are cancelled are quietly reversed once public attention fades. Doctors and pharmacists profit via family-owned pharmacies that skirt conflict-of-interest rules. There’s no system for doctors to flag clusters of poisoning symptoms. There is no effective drug recall mechanism. So, contaminated batches remain in circulation and cause deaths again. Despite rules that mandate every batch of raw material and final product be tested, and records maintained, there is no documentation of a chain-of-custody of inputs. Poor regulation caters to the resistance to transparency and accountability. The Union Government must set right this malady forthwith.
