WHO'S finding that Gambia deaths were caused by contaminated cough medicines is NOT an attack on India, NOR an attack on India's pharma industry.
Making it a party political issue and NOT taking safety seriously is a betrayal of the reputation of India's pharma sector.
Making it a party political issue and NOT taking safety seriously is a betrayal of the reputation of India's pharma sector.
https://twitter.com/ndtv/status/1608531423027433474
Why would a BJP spokesperson come so vociferously to the defence of a particular small pharma company whose product MAY have been contaminated and thus implicated in these deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan?
One reason COULD be that the company paid for protection. #electoralbonds
One reason COULD be that the company paid for protection. #electoralbonds
Testing fresh samples of cough meds cud be an irrelevance. Just because the samples tested by WHO labs in Gambia showed DEG contamination is not suff reason to expect these latest samples also to test positive.
Conversely,
Conversely,
If these latest tests by an Indian lab are negative then it does not necessarily mean that the original tests on the Gambia (and Uzbek) samples were wrong or flawed.
In other words:
In other words:
A positive test for DEG contamination in the latest samples sent for testing by @CDSCO_INDIA_INF would be definitely INCULPATORY.
A negative test would NOT be exculpatory.
A negative test would NOT be exculpatory.
The reputational damage to India's record of safety and quality of product in the pharma sector is HUGE. The regulatory responsr should be swift, drastic, open, transparent and proportionate to the enormity of the effects of DEG as a contaminant.
Instead what we see is a wholly inappropriate and defensive approach that seeks first and foremost to deny the possibility even that these deaths COULD be as a result of contamination.
By presenting the WHO report from Gambia (and the latest Uzbek claims) of DEG contaminated cough syrup as an attack on India itself, the Indian regulatory authorities have been put in an impossible situation. I
If they take the tough regulatory action needed to clean up the process, they will be accused of siding with the 'foreign agents' out to do down India Inc. If they fail to act they will be letting down patients.
The trouble is that the Indian drug regulator's reputation for robust and INDEPENDENT enforcement of standards has long been suspect. See the Book #TruthPill by @d_s_thakur and @Preddy85. The present shambles makes it worse.
The NDTV debate shows that a large part of the problem has to do with the attitude of the BJP spokesperson in this debate. What has the issue of India's "swift response" to the Covid pandemic got to do with the issue of drug safety?
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