3/n The root cause, as always, seems to be elsewhere. @Preddy85 and I wrote this piece trying to explain how unaccountable bureaucracy plays with lives of people and which seems to be a feature of our drug regulation.
Earlier this week, @CDSCO_INDIA_INF finally relented and published the names of the manufacturers whose products were found to be "Not of Standard Quality" in central and state drug testing laboratories.
There is visible outrage this time, including official
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2/n spokespersons trying to manufacture a fig leaf to cover this up.
Truth is, such failures are routine.
Earlier this year, it was disclosed in the legislature of Himachal Pradesh that more than 1,600 drugs failed testing in the state over the last three years
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the list which is publicly available and shows many well known drugs:Β
The question, which we refuse to ask is this: what is the deterrent for erring manufacturers to stop selling this poison to unsuspecting patients?dineshthakur.com/wp-content/uplβ¦
@Preddy85 and I write in @HindustanTimes today about the sordid history of Rule 170 and how @moayush removed it from the law while the SC was adjudicating the IMA's petition. π§΅π
If you need a definition of regulatory capture, look no further.
2/n Our regulations require @moayush products to NOT submit any data for four of the five parameters that apply to modern medicine @theliverdr
Controlling false claims in advertisement is the only lever we have against outright quackery
@moayush @theliverdr 3/n
When the Parliamentary Standing Committee in 4 of its reports no less, repeatedly flagged the fact that the existing law (Drugs & Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act) was not effective in checking the brazen claims of the Ayush industry,
Lots of discussion about what happened in the Court yesterday in the case of #LalaRamdev as to how and why his company repeatedly made false claims of cure.
He and his company is NOT alone. The true culprit is elsewhere. Let me illustrate
Two members of the Himachal Legislative Assembly, Kewal Singh Pathania and Vipin Singh Parmar did us all a great favor.
They asked a question of the HP Ministry of Health to provide a list of all drugs that have failed testing in the last three years along
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For background, HP has the largest number of pharma manufacturing units in the country because of the 'tax holiday' provided for development of hilly regions.
This is the 1st time when we have this data from a state govt on record.
3/n The answer provided by the govt. indicates that over the last three years, a total of 1683 drug samples manufactured in the state failed testing π±
Just think about this number. 1683 drugs failed testing over the last three years.
The Govt. (@nppa_india) recently announced the creation of a committee to relook the issue of drug pricing in the country.
As usual the focus is going to be the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) which is notified under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955:
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It is time to question the logic and rationale of regulating drug pricing through the DPCO, when India has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world.
Why is market competition not bringing down prices of generic drugs in India? π€
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Economists say that the larger problem in India is carterliation amongst pharmacies through their trade associations β these pharmacies collude through their associations to set prices of drugs instead of competing with each other which is why so many