HASAN HADI/Dehradun
The recent crackdown by the Special Task Force (STF) on fake medicine manufacturing units in Kotdwar and Haridwar has raised serious concerns over public health and the monitoring system of drug authorities.
According to the police, fake medicines made in the name of popular brands are a serious threat to people’s health and human rights, especially when life saving medicines are involved. During the raids, one common factor found was that the factories were either officially closed or their drug manufacturing licences had already been cancelled.
Questions are now being raised over how such factories continued operations despite licence cancellation. Responding to the issue, assistant drug controller Sudheer Kumar said senior officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have held meetings and formed a special committee to investigate the matter. He said the committee will inspect factories across the State, including units that have been shut down or whose licences were cancelled.
Medical store owners have also expressed concern over fake medicines entering the market. A medical store operator near Government Doon Medical College Hospital said on the condition of anonymity that many new dealers offer medicines at unusually heavy discounts. “We avoid buying such medicines because genuine medicines cannot be sold at such low prices. We trust old and authorised dealers,” he said.
Former president of the Chemists Association of Dehradun, Naveen Khurana advised medical stores and distributors to carefully check bills and batch numbers before purchasing medicines. He also warned people to be cautious while buying heavily discounted medicines online, saying genuine medicines usually do not have such high profit margins.
