No body to cry . . .

In addition to the news item about the drug company Ranbaxy paying fines in the US, another news item which may have missed many of our attention during the last fortnight would be the collapse of Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh which left about 1100 death. The tragedy has been touted as the world's worst industrial accident after the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984.

In addition to the dead, it is reported that almost the same number of people have been permanently maimed for life, having lost at least one limb. The snaps from the accident site are harrowing and numbing. 

The shocking thing that came out after the disaster was the harrowing conditions and paltry compensations that the workers of such factories received. And the end products they churned out graced multinational garment stores in the developed countries.

And one can only imagine the huge profits that were being made by the middlemen who are involved in this sort of business. For the thousands of consumers who buy the garments made at this sort of factories, either they don't know about the background of the origin of their purchase or they're not bothered about that. 

My fear is that the majority of us belong to the latter group. 

I firmly believe that most of the so-called development in most regions of the world happen at the expense of the poor and marginalized. 

Recently, I was exposed to this hard truth in two different ways. 

The first instance was when we were exploring ways to promote some form of local industry in our region. One option we thought about was apparel making especially those with embroidery. I was shocked when I was told that we would not be able to compete with the low labour costs which was available in countries like Bangladesh. 

The plot thickens as costs of production are much lower in countries where environmental and regulatory laws are lax which further decrease costs. 

The second incident was a discussion with few colleagues on the costs of keeping domestic maids in our homes. The costs are quite prohibitive in states such as Kerala. Whereas costs are quite low when women/girls are brought from poorer parts of the country for the same purpose. 

Which of course, has fueled the incidents of human trafficking in many parts of the country. The poor tribals of Jharkhand, where I serve, is a major victim of this social evil. 

One can only imagine the furor that would have been created if the tragedy had occurred in the US or any other developing country. 

Were not human beings created equal in the image of God? If that is true, it is imperative that we treat all fellow human beings as equal . . . which should transcend racial, religious, regional and national barriers. 

Flawed Pharmaceuticals

I wonder how many of us in India noticed about the news that the pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy generic drug maker Ranbaxy pleaded guilty on Monday to federal drug safety violations in the US and will pay $500 million in fines to resolve claims that it sold subpar drugs and made false statements to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about its manufacturing practices at two factories in India. 

If you missed the news please read it either in The New York Times or Reuters or our own Economic Times. 

For a country which is obsessed with the Indian Premier League and the personal lives of it's film stars, I don't think this sort of news would garner much attention. Of course, there will one group of us who will be term it as US's vendetta on Indian business interests. 

The quality of drugs available in the Indian market has always been doubtful. The details from the news items is alarming . . . unreliable shelf lives, absence of proper quality and safety tests, batches of atorvostatin contained glass particles, lying to the FDA and falsified data. I wonder how much of this is true with the other companies. 

In the US, there is a FDA to keep a tab on the companies. Who does that in India?

We've all heard enough stories of how different brands of the same drug differ in their effectiveness. To make matters worse, the number of unethical combination preparations very much against the principles of any drug formulary has been an issue of major concern. 

In the corrupt scheme of things in the country, I wonder how much of a policing can one successfully do in the area of pharmaceutical regulations. 

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the plot thickens in a situation where doctors are educated and updated by the pharmaceutical industry on prescription practices. One can only imagine about the sort of flawed information they will end up getting. 

Now, what can the common man do about this. 

First of all, there is the well known fact that medicines may not be needed for quite a lot of conditions. It is time we asked ourselves about how serious we are to assimilate interventions such as lifestyle modifications, exercise and diet changes. 

There are enough stories about how drugs touted as miracle chemicals turned out to be big killers. 

Do recheck if you really need the antibiotic or the analgesic or the anti-histamine being prescribed. And you may not need the umpteen number of multivitamins and supplementary pills. Do query your doctor about why a particular medicine is being given. 

And when you have to buy a medicine, buy it from a government run pharmacy if possible. But again, in India you can never tell. 

The bottom line . . . prevention is better than cure.