AFTER A gap of almost 15 years, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has released the second National Vulture Conservation Action Plan (2020-25). Yet the report continues to grapple with the same question that prompted India’s first-ever vulture conservation plan in 2006: how to stop the use of a medicine that wiped out almost the entire vulture population in the country. The most common vultures— oriental white-backed, long-billed, and slender-billed declined by more than 96 per cent in a decade (1993-2003), says the latest action plan.
In 2004, bird experts established that diclofenac, a non-steroidal drug given to cattle to treat inflammation, was behind the population crash. When a vulture consumed a cattle carcass with traces of diclofenac, it developed gout and almost immediately died of kidney failure.
In 2006, on the recommendation of the first conservation plan, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) banned the veterinary use of diclofenac. In 2015, it restricted the vial size of diclofenac formulation for humans to 3 ml to check its use by the veterinarian, who need much higher dosage for treating cattle. It was also made a schedule H drug (under the Drug and Cosmetics Act 1940), which means it cannot be sold without a doctor’s prescription.
この記事は Down To Earth の December 16, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Down To Earth の December 16, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
THE ALCHEMY OF EMOTIONS - SL'OTH
As with all personality traits, laziness is a combination of genes and environment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - WRATH
Anger is an emotional programme, a part of natural selection that helps us bargain for better treatment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GLUTTONY
We have been captured by food and it is driving us to do something that is arguably not good for us
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - ENVY
Envy gives people a fundamental desire for a higher social rank
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS-L'UST
Love, lust, attachments are basic brain circuits. They are too primitive a system and will never change
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GREED
Evolutionary biology sees greed as a way to increase your chances of survival
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS
I felt for the tormented whirlwinds Damned for their carnal sins Committed when they let their passions rule their reason
INVISIBLE THREAT
Significant presence of microplastics in Puducherry’s agricultural soil raises concerns for soil and crop health
Feeding off each other
VEGETARIAN MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE WEST GREW WITH MUTUAL SUPPORT AND VALIDATION
India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents
