A deadly dose of neglect: Bitter truth behind cough syrup scare

Bottled negligence: DEG contamination exposes gaps in inspections, leaving pharma units from Gujarat to Kerala under the microscope

- SHINE JACOB & SOHINI DAS

Travelling on the Bengaluru-Chennai highway, over 50 km from the Tamil Nadu capital, the road bisects, with a temple in the middle.

Along the road on the left are a bunch of shops and showrooms. Sandwiched between a Hero MotoCorp showroom and a shop that hires out cooking utensils is a small, dingy building that's been locked up.

The nondescript two-room building on the edge of Sunguvarchatram town is a manufacturing unit of Chennai-headquartered Sresan Pharmaceuticals. Over the past few days, the area has been buzzing with media personnel, investigating officers and police. It is here that the pharma company made its Coldriff cough syrup that has allegedly killed 17 children in Madhya Pradesh.

You don't even have to enter the dingy building to see that the syrups were made in unsanitary conditions. The unit poor hygienic conditions outside are a telling sign of the alleged lack of inspection for more than 14 years.

Scattered around were several empty cans of sorbitol, a common ingredient used as a sweetener, stabiliser, and moisture-retaining agent in medicines and oral care products. On the small door grill, the state drug regulator has put up a notice saying samples tested from the unit were "adulterated and contained 48.6 per cent diethylene glycol (DEG), a toxic substance that may render the contents injurious to health."

DEG can lead to kidney failure, neurological damage, and can be potentially fatal, especially in children.