An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Adulteration In Medicines

It is a well-known, well-reported and well-published fact that more than fifty percent of medicines in India are spurious, substandard, unhygienic, and adulterated. One can only imagine the catastrophic effects of such medicines on human and non-human beings. I personally don’t know what percent of Jains are engaged in the manufacture of such medicines, but I do know that a large number of Jains are engaged in the trade, distribution and dispensing of such products as medical practitioners, pharmacists and drugstore (chemist shop) owners and workers. Many of them are very aware of which products are adulterated. They are not ignorant about it. Some of my own relatives in India own drugstores, but the greed for making quick money does not bother them, I suppose.

Recently, The Wall Street Journal (a very prestigious and well-regarded daily newspaper in the US) ran a story entitled, “India’s Fake Drugs are a Real Problem.” The Food and Drug Administration of the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh recently conducted a series of raids throughout its region to uncover counterfeit drugs. The raids yielded large quantities of substandard medicines and resulted in several arrests. The counterfeit drug trade thrives in India; the profits are enormous. The public health consequences of the counterfeit drug trade are serious. These products, often adulterated with road paint and chalk, look identical to the antibiotics they pretend to be. Thousands of people probably die every year either because they are poisoned by bad ingredients or because the counterfeit doesn’t treat the victim’s malady.”

Many years ago, one cardiologist from a famous hospital in Delhi told me that many a times when he gives glucose to a patient, very soon after, the patient develops high temperature fever; only because the glucose was adulterated.

Do we ever stop and think that it is not just others but our own selves, our own families that can also become victims of these adulterated medicines some day? I hear such stories all the time, but with greed and a desire to make a quick buck, the disease keeps on spreading.

Now you decide: is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?