Dong-A Pharm’s children’s antipyretic ‘Champ Syrup’ and Daewon Pharm’s Kol Daewon Kids Pen Syrup, which account for 90% of the market share and are said to have no baby among Korean babies who have not eaten them, were discontinued in April and May, respectively. What is the reason for the national children’s antipyretic crisis that made parents stumble?
It is said that India is behind it. Dong-A Pharmaceutical reported to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in May that “the cause of the browning of Champ Syrup is an Indian D- sorbitol additive.” D- sorbitol is an additive used for sweetness. As the demand for cold medicine soared due to Corona 19, Dong-A Pharmaceutical explained that they additionally used Indian products instead of domestic ones, and that the iron found in them caused browning.
In Korea, the antipyretic drug crisis was over, but now, anxiety about Indian medicine is widespread around the world. Since last year, cold medicine in India has even been stigmatized as a ‘death medicine’.
The incident came to the fore in Gambia, West Africa, in July of last year when children between the ages of 5 months and 5 died one after another due to acute kidney disease. Three months later, when the Gambian health authorities investigated, it was found that the children who died had eaten cough and cold syrup containing paracetamol (acetaminophen), and died of kidney problems within 3 to 5 days after taking it.
The World Health Organization ( WHO ) has linked four cold syrups manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical company Maiden to the death of 메이저사이트a Gambian child. This is because diethylene glycol ( DEG ) and ethylene glycol ( EG ) were contained above the permissible level. DEG and EG are chemicals commonly used in automobile antifreeze and brake fluid. Some pharmaceutical companies seeking to lower manufacturing costs have improperly used DEG and EG in syrup-type cold medicines.
In Indonesia, more than 200 children have died of acute kidney disease in October last year. Most of them were under the age of 5 and had accidents after eating cold syrup. DEG and EG were also detected in eight cold syrup products from Indonesia that they ate . Indonesia has stated that there is no record of the products of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Inc., being imported into Indonesia, but since Indonesia imports most of its medicines from India and China, suspicions are being raised that Indian cold medicines may have been involved in the deaths of Indonesian children. Two months later, in December of last year, 19 children died in Uzbekistan after taking ‘Dok -1 Max’ syrup, an Indian pharmaceutical company Marion Biotech’s cold and flu treatment. EG was also detected in this syrup .
In February , the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) recommended that global pharma, an Indian pharmaceutical company, stop using artificial tears, ‘Ezrecare’. This is because there have been cases where people who used Ezrecare died or went blind due to ‘Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection’. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), a total of 81 patients were infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa as of May, 4 of whom died and 14 lost their sight due to the use of Ezrecare.
Why did Indian drugs come to be criticized as ‘death drugs’? This is because Indian authorities do not properly verify the safety of drugs. ukAccording to the BBC , at least 7,500 products failed quality tests after the Indian government randomly collected and analyzed pharmaceuticals produced in India between 2007 and 2020. A bigger problem is that Indian companies ignore international Good Manufacturing Practice ( GMP ).
Taking this incident as an opportunity, the Indian government made it compulsory for pharmaceutical companies to send samples to the government for inspection before exporting cough syrup from June. But trust is not earned. This is because even if a countermeasure was prepared in the event of a drug accident, it was only talk. The BBC pointed out, “The Indian government has made guidelines for recalling (recalling) all medicines if a problem is found, but it has never been implemented.”
Even so, the whole world has no choice but to look at India crying and eating mustard. This is because India is leading the production of generic drugs (generic drugs) and playing the role of ‘pharmacy of the world’. According to the Indian government, India’s supply of generic drugs in the world accounts for 20%, ranking third in the world in terms of annual production. More than 40% and 25% of generic drugs distributed in the US and UK, respectively, are from India.
Pharmaceutical production has been outsourced to India, where labor and rental costs are low as pharmaceutical price competition intensifies globally. More than 3,000 global pharmaceutical companies currently operate around 10,000 pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in India. Ruth Pollard, an opinion editor for Bloomberg News , said ,