Spurious drugs’ growth rampant in country

According to an Assocham study, spurious drugs valued at Rs300 crore are sold every year in and around Delhi. 

The Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) proudly states that the level of adulterated drugs sold in Maharashtra is below 0.1%. This is based on the detection of spurious drugs in raids carried out by its inspectors on chemists’ shops based on complaints and random checks. This figure seems difficult to believe because FDA has only 100 inspectors for Maharashtra, which has over 50,000 chemists, of which over 6,000 are in Mumbai.

Most spurious drug cases are either undetected or unreported due to the lack of faith in the system by the public. Even doctors who face a problem with certain medicines not acting according to their expectations would prefer to revise their diagnosis or prescribe stronger drugs than suspect that a drug given to a patient is spurious.

The definition of a spurious drug is complicated to say the least. A medication which does not contain the correct amount of medicine, a product which is misbranded or one which is produced with a packaging looking like a similar high-selling product all come under the definition of ‘spurious’.

FDA officials rely on complaints from consumers, chemists and doctors to trace out spurious drugs. With only 100 inspectors, the vigilance and detection mechanism is stretched out thin. Till recently, drug adulteration was a bailable offence and offenders would get off with no sentences.  Periodic checking of samples of commonly used drugs is the only option for a system of safe medicines and a healthy population.