Chandigarh, July 25
New medicine in old vials — that is exactly what so many pharmaceutical companies in the region are offering. If the patients’ health is affected in the process, nobody is apparently bothered about it.
Though the medicine’s potency is adversely affected and the chances of infection increase due to recycling of old phials, some of the companies in this part of the region purchase the bottles from the junk dealers in and around Chandigarh before packing off the medicines to chemists and hospitals.
The members of the Punjab Drug Manufacturers’ Association (PDMA) deny the allegations, but it is an open secret that the products sold in recycled bottles include not only tonics, but even life saving drugs like intravenous injection vials.
A survey of the junk markets in Chandigarh and its vicinity reveals that it is an organised activity. After collecting the bottles from outside the nursing homes, dispensaries and even residences, the scavengers and
rag pickers from all over the region, including Jammu and Kashmir, sell the phials to the junk dealers for a paltry sum of Rs 3.50 per kg.
The bottles are then stacked in sacks and sold off to wholesale dealers with their own little “cleaning” units situated in the open. There, women and even children wash the bottles, even rubber stoppers of injection vials, under “unhygenic conditions”.
In fact, you have containers filled with detergent-less murky water. As the workers simply dip the bottles to remove the labels, flies and mosquitoes hover all over the place, adding to the possibility of infection setting in the vials. After “cleaning” the bottles, they are sold off at three times the price to several pharmaceutical units.
Some of them do rewash the bottles and “buff” the glass before packing medicines, others do not even do that. Taking a serious view of the matter, the Indian Medical Association’s local chapter had over six years ago written a letter to the authorities concerned in the Punjab Government seeking an end to the practice. Yet, little has apparently been done in this regard.
PCMS Association President Dr Hardeep Singh says the practice is unethical, if not illegal. The process not only affects the potency of the medicine, the residue in the bottle can result in infection which can prove to be fatal in certain cases.
Other doctors admit most of people purchasing medicines just look at the expiry date without even realising that the drug can still prove to be ineffective due to improper bottling.
Describing the situation as “unfortunate”, PDMA President Jagdeep Singh categorically states, “I am sure the bottles are not being recirculated in 11 pharmaceutical units located in Mohali, but if industries situated in other parts of the state are doing it, then the Government of India is to be solely blamed for the malady”.
Giving details, he says: “The excise duty payable by small units on ex-factory price of medicines has been enhanced to 30 per
cent... I am not saying that the increase in excise duty justifies unscrupulous activities, but the units are left with little option. You see, they all have taken loans and are living under constant pressure of repaying the
debt... If things continue like this, they will start mixing water to the medicines.”
