A Bitter Pill to Swallow

ATE last month, a paper in The Lancet Global by a team of researchers led by Maximilian J. Wilfinger of the University of Notre Dame, US, reported that several chemotherapy drugs administered in sub-Saharan Africa had failed quality tests.

- PRATIK KANJILAL

ATE last month, a paper in The Lancet Global by a team of researchers led by Maximilian J. Wilfinger of the University of Notre Dame, US, reported that several chemotherapy drugs administered in sub-Saharan Africa had failed quality tests. About 20 percent of the drugs were either ineffective or had dangerous side effects. The products of 17 manufacturers failed tests. All but one are Indian firms.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism enlarged the story. Like earlier episodes in which paediatric syrups exported from India killed children overseas, this episode reminds us that merely having a volume lead in generics does not guarantee that India can be the "world's pharmacy", as the government likes to advertise it.

These were the big picture stories, but the incident also has a personal, human angle. Personal stories are of course anecdotal, but that does not automatically devalue them, because we are not doing statistics here. So, to get personal, a couple of years ago, someone close to me was diagnosed with an aggressive paediatric cancer. We mostly hear of research successes, and the general impression is that cancers are becoming curable, or at least manageable. Indeed, they are, but for many cancers, treatment has not improved in 30 years. For perspective, it means that the treatment of the cancer we're talking about has not changed since V.P. Singh was prime minister.