Cough Syrup Cost-Cutting Leads to Child Deaths

In a tragic series of events, a cough syrup named COLDBEST-PC became the cause of over 100 children’s deaths, leaving behind shattered families and a string of unanswered questions. The syrup, a seemingly innocuous concoction intended to alleviate cold symptoms, instead turned out to be a lethal mix of industrial toxins due to the utilization of contaminated, non-pharmaceutical-grade ingredients by manufacturers.

Cough Syrup Catastrophe

In India, Uzbekistan, and Gambia, families are grappling with the insurmountable pain of losing their children to a seemingly benign pharmaceutical intervention. Jafar Din’s family is one of the numerous shattered by this tragedy. His son Irfan, relying on COLDBEST-PC to cure his ailment, paid with his life within a week. His was not an isolated case; numerous families experienced similar tragic losses, with parents left to grapple with the grief and the anger stemming from losing their children to a seemingly harmless medication.

As these families search for answers and justice, they uncover a shocking reality—these tragic deaths were not unfortunate accidents but the outcome of conscious choices made by pharmaceutical companies, where profits were prioritized over patient safety. The pain and loss experienced by these families are emblematic of the broader issue at hand: a deep, systemic failure marked by a lack of ethics and responsibility on the part of pharmaceutical companies.

Cutting Corners

Investigations revealed that this lethal cough syrup contained high concentrations of industrial toxins such as Diethylene Glycol (DEG) and Ethylene Glycol (EG). These chemicals, known to cause acute kidney damage, organ failure, and eventual death, had infiltrated medicinal concoctions due to pharmaceutical companies allegedly opting for industrial-grade propylene glycol (PG) instead of its pharmaceutical counterpart, a decision driven by the former’s cheaper cost.

The repercussions were fatal. With every sip of the toxic concoction, children in these regions were unknowingly walking towards death, their families oblivious to the lurking danger in those seemingly harmless bottles. And as the body count increased, the veil was lifted, exposing a chilling tale of corporate negligence and avarice.

Three pharmaceutical companies – Digital Vision, Marion Biotech, and Maiden Pharmaceuticals – are implicated in this horrific chain of events. Government analyses of the syrups made by Digital Vision that the children took – as well as samples taken from the company’s factory and its distributor in early 2020 – found they contained a 34% concentration of the toxin diethylene glycol (DEG), according to the charge sheet for an ongoing criminal case against Digital Vision’s owners and an investigative report by Jammu and Kashmir’s drugs regulator.

That concentration is far above safe levels for DEG, an industrial solvent used in car brake fluid. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the safe limit, based on internationally accepted standards, is no more than 0.10%.

Digital says there was no DEG in its syrup and its medicines are not to blame. But the company has provided no evidence to support this. Even the suppliers of the alleged pharmaceutical-quality ingredients have either denied or questioned the companies’ claims, putting a serious dent in their credibility. 

Propylene glycol is a colorless, viscous liquid that does not react with other substances, making it an ideal solvent for syrupy medicines. It is generally sold in two grades: pharmaceutical and industrial.

Industrial grade PG – widely used in liquid detergents, antifreeze, paints or coatings – is always cheaper than the pharmaceutical version. This is partly because it is not intended for human consumption, and may contain more DEG or EG. Prices for pharmaceutical grade PG in India jumped several times in recent years due to supply chain disruptions, which may explain why much cheaper industrial chemicals were used. 

Digital Vision has said that it produced the suspected batch of COLDBEST in September 2019 using pharmaceutical-grade PG from a supplier, Thakur Enterprises, based in Haryana state.

Thakur confirmed it sold PG to Digital, but said it only supplies industrial grade chemicals. “All my bills say, in red letters, that all my products are for industrial use only,” said Vibhor Chitkara, who runs Thakur.

Troubling History

While this calamity stands out in its severity and heartbreak, it finds parallels in the tainted drug incidents of the past. 

Thalidomide

Decades ago, thalidomide was prescribed as a miracle cure for morning sickness in pregnant women. Little did they know, this ‘wonder drug’ would lead to thousands of babies being born with severe birth defects. Like the recent cough syrup debacle, the quest for profit and hasty drug approval processes were to blame.

Vioxx

In the 2000s, Vioxx, an arthritis pain reliever, was linked to thousands of heart attacks and strokes, resulting in its eventual withdrawal from the market. Just like the toxic cough syrup episode, warning signs were ignored, and corporate interests seemingly took precedence over patient safety.

EzriCare

Earlier this year, an eye drop product marketed under the brand name EzriCare (produced by India-based Global Pharma Healthcare) was infected with a dangerous bacteria. The drops left a harrowing trail of four fatalities, 14 instances of permanent blindness, and four surgical eyeball extractions.

Bad Track Records

While poor-quality and contaminated drugs endanger consumers in many countries, including the United States, they can be catastrophic in those not equipped to conduct inspections. For example, India often exports lower quality drugs to Africa because they know regulatory standards there are lower.

Marion Biotech, based in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, produced cough syrups that the health ministry in Uzbekistan has linked to the deaths of 65 children there last year. The syrups shipped to Uzbekistan last year by Marion were made with a toxic industrial-grade ingredient, rather than the legitimate pharmaceutical version.

Tests by an Indian government laboratory in January found 22 samples of Marion-made syrups were “adulterated and spurious,” the country’s drug controller said in March. The company’s then-head of operations, Tuhin Bhattacharya, told Reuters it had exported cough syrups for more than a decade without testing the PG for impurities like DEG or EG.

“No exporter in India used to test for DEG and EG,” he said. “No one does it.”

Two companies, Digital Vision and its subsidiary, Orison Pharmaceuticals, were not unfamiliar with regulatory scrutiny, having received at least 16 warnings about substandard medicines before the tragic incidents in Jammu. This revelatory piece of information begs the question – why were corrective actions not enforced stringently?

It wasn’t just about ignored warnings; there were also stark discrepancies in the supply chain narratives. Suppliers like Thakur Enterprises and Maya Chemtech were implicated, but the trail of accountability was murky, with claims and counterclaims muddling the truth. Neither the pharmaceutical companies nor the chemical suppliers have provided evidence to support their claims of innocence.

Heart-Wrenching Consequences

These alleged corporate shortcuts have left families torn apart and have stolen the lives of children. Parents like Irfan are a living testament to the devastation caused by a single bottle of toxic syrup, their grief a constant reminder of the negligence and greed that permeates the pharmaceutical realm, rendering it a domain of potential harm rather than healing.

The initial symptoms of DEG and EG poisoning, such as nausea and vomiting, could have been early signs for intervention, but the lack of immediate medical access in these regions exacerbated the situation, allowing the poison to wreak irreversible damage.

Charges of culpable homicide have been leveled against the founders of Digital Vision, Parshottam Goyal, and his sons, Manic and Konic Goyal. But the battle for justice is uphill, with the Goyals vehemently denying wrongdoing and the court’s decision still pending.

The question remains – how many more lives need to be lost before stringent actions are taken against such alleged corporate recklessness? How many more children must suffer before the world wakes up to the grim realities of corporate greed and shoddy oversight?

Conclusion

This tragic saga serves as a harrowing reminder of the potential dangers lurking in our medicine cabinets due to the unscrupulous practices of some pharmaceutical companies. It’s a wake-up call to regulatory bodies worldwide to fortify the checks and balances and to every individual to be vigilant, ensuring that such devastating events do not recur, and no more lives are lost to corporate greed.

The plight of these victims and their families is not just a story of individual loss but a reflection of a more significant situation where morals are compromised at the altar of profits. The devastation wrought by these toxic concoctions demands a collective effort to ensure that the sanctity of human life prevails over corporate greed.