What a bloody mess! Here we are in 2025, boasting about being the ‘pharmacy of the world’, and yet our kids are dropping like flies from something as innocuous as a bottle of cough syrup. The latest row over Coldrif syrup – that deadly concoction laced with diethylene glycol – has claimed at least 14 young lives in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
And for what? Sheer negligence, greed, and a regulatory system that’s more sieve than safeguard. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, nothing will.Let’s not mince words. This isn’t some isolated cock-up; it’s a repeat offender. Remember the Gambia fiasco back in 2022, where our exported syrups wiped out dozens of children abroad? The world screamed blue murder, WHO issued alerts, and we patted ourselves on the back for ‘investigating’.
Fast forward three years, and we’re poisoning our own at home. Srisan Pharmaceuticals, the culprits behind Coldrif, churned out batches with toxic industrial solvents – stuff that’s meant for antifreeze, not kiddie colds. Tests by state labs confirmed the poison levels were off the charts, yet this rubbish was peddled in government hospitals and pharmacies. A doctor in MP has been nabbed for prescribing it, but let’s face it, he’s just the fall guy. The real villains are the pharma fat cats and the drug controllers who let this slip through.How on earth does this happen in a country with the CDSCO – our so-called Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation – watching over?
These chaps are supposed to test, approve, and monitor every drug. But time and again, we’ve seen corners cut, bribes allegedly changing hands, and factories operating like backyard distilleries. In Rajasthan, Kayson Pharma – another dodgy outfit linked to similar syrups – is now under the scanner, with the entire stockpile being probed. Gujarat’s joined the fray with statewide checks, and three states have banned Coldrif outright. Good on them, but why the hell wasn’t this nipped in the bud?
We’ve got laws like the Drugs and Cosmetics Act gathering dust, while kids gasp their last from renal failure caused by these toxic tipples.The government’s response? The usual song and dance – probes launched, factories sealed, criminal cases filed. Police in MP have slapped manslaughter charges on the makers, which is a start. But forgive me if I’m not holding my breath.
We’ve seen this tamasha before: a few low-level scapegoats get paraded, fines are slapped (peanuts for these firms), and business resumes as usual. Meanwhile, families in villages like those in MP are left shattered, burying toddlers who just had a sniffle. It’s criminal that in a nation where healthcare is already a lottery for the poor, we’re adding poison to the mix.Enough is enough.
We need a complete overhaul – mandatory third-party testing for all cough syrups, real-time tracking of batches, and jail time for executives who play fast and loose with lives. The pharma lobby might whine about ‘over-regulation’, but tell that to the parents who’ve lost their little ones. If we don’t crack down now, this row will just be another footnote in our long list of preventable tragedies. India deserves better than this lethal laxity. Wake up, powers that be, before more innocents pay the price.