Some time back, a survey report by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had warned the government that medicines were being deliberately taken out of the reach of the common man. The reason for the inflation of medicines is not the cost of the ingredients used in the drug, but the drug companies turning into the lust of profit. Due to this greed, the companies do not even follow the rules of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
With a view to curb the lust for profit in the pharmaceutical business, the central government is going to implement the policy of ‘one drug, one price’. Under this, medicines will be purchased in bulk and distributed in central health centers. Along with the health scheme, the central government will procure medicines for other PSUs, hospitals of Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, Jan Aushadhi Yojana and All India Institutes of Medical Sciences.
Due to the centralized system of procurement of medicines at the nationwide level, not only will the medicine be of quality, but there will also be uniformity in its price. About twenty two hundred crores of life saving medicines are purchased by the central and state governments every year, which is about fifteen percent of the total pharmaceutical market. At present, the price of the same drug purchased by different government departments and ministries from pharma companies varies. This initiative will curb excess billing of pharmaceutical companies for high profits, gifts for doctors and corruption.
Some time back, a survey report by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had warned the government that medicines were being deliberately taken out of the reach of the common man. The reason for the inflation of medicines is not the cost of the ingredients used in the drug, but the drug companies turning into the lust of profit. Due to this greed, the companies do not even follow the rules of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. According to this, the cost of medicines can be kept a hundred times more than the cost. But the cost of medicines is being charged more by one thousand and twenty three percent. According to the report, even well-known pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithline, Pfizer, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy Labs and Alembic also charge two to five hundred times more for their drugs.
Earlier, the Comptroller and Auditor General had also questioned the domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies, saying that the pharmaceutical companies took advantage of the exemption in excise duty given by the government, but did not cut the prices of medicines. In this way, customers were cheated of about forty three crores. Also, a breakup of one hundred and eighty three crores was done by not paying the revenue to the government.
Regarding this fraud, the CAG had suggested the government to amend the Drug Price Control Act. Considering such suggestions, the government has decided to implement one price, one medicine policy at CGHS’s 1200 hospitals, 200 test centres, 500 wellness centers and more than eight thousand Jan Aushadhi stores spread across the country.
The distribution of this drug would require more standards of integrity than the technical competency of the vendors participating on the basis of bidding. The drug purchase committee also needs to procure those drugs, which are effective in treatment and affordable in price. Since public health is under the jurisdiction of the states, the coverage of drug distribution beneficiaries will increase if they are also made participants in this scheme.
The drug business related to the survival of human beings is rapidly turning into an inhuman and immoral practice of profit. The practice of prescribing expensive and unnecessary medicines for the patients by giving expensive gifts to the doctors has increased. Many unnecessary investigations are also being conducted only for profit. That is why there have been allegations against the doctors that they are indulging in the service of the pharmaceutical business.
This is confirmed by the fact that doctors definitely get knowledge from higher medical institutions, but after becoming a doctor, their knowledge is hijacked by the pharmaceutical industry. That’s why most of the doctors prescribe the same medicine in the prescription, which is explained to them by the representatives of the pharmaceutical companies and gifts them with commission. A helpless patient goes to the doctor hoping to get a recovery, and not to indulge the pharma industry. But it is the result of the immoral race to earn money that the patient is now refusing to accept the doctor as the God of the earth.
The result of this was that in 2008, thirty generic drugs of India’s largest pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy were banned by the US. America had banned the import of medicines made in its Dewas (Madhya Pradesh) and Paonta Sahib (Himachal Pradesh). The US government body Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had claimed that the standard level of medicines being manufactured by Ranbaxy’s Indian units was inferior to the drugs made in the US. These drugs did not meet the criteria of the US Pharmaceutical Code of Conduct. Whereas India’s Ranbaxy is such a pharmaceutical company, which exports the largest number of generic drugs to America.
Many such large multinational companies also do not follow the code of conduct. They also act as an obstacle in the implementation of any binding law. Because they have spread their business only by giving profits to advertisements and doctors. The association of small pharmaceutical companies even says that if the practice of giving gifts to doctors is stopped, then the prices of medicines will come down by 50 percent. Since the medicine is manufactured under a special technology and it is the disease and medicine specialist doctors who ask to take a certain medicine on prescription. It is necessary to take the medicine as prescribed by the doctor. Therefore, doctors are taking advantage of this helplessness of the patient.
Nature has given humans a strong immune system within the body to protect them from diseases. Apart from this, there is also an anti-disease enzyme lysozyme, which destroys bacteria. While antibiotics saved mankind from many infectious diseases, as a result, they weakened the body’s resistance power. Just as the human body adapts itself to different natural temperature, atmosphere and geographical conditions and environment, similarly the micro-organisms on our earth and the body’s natural resistance against them have also evolved.
But antibiotics upset the balance between the two, so whenever antibiotics proved to be an antidote to micro-organisms, bacteria and viruses made themselves more powerful. Well, megabacteria have come under the category of never-ending bloodsuckers. That is why today scientists have to say that the amount of antibiotics should be curbed.
The lust for profits of pharmaceutical companies and the increasing greed of doctors continue to be a hindrance. The profiteers of Allopathic system of medicine, through sponsored research, have also conspired to marginalize Ayurveda, Unani, Naturopathy and Homeopathy as unscientific. Since microorganisms have metamorphosed into new forms, the limits of antibiotics have been underlined. As a result, alternative medicine practices are gaining ground again. For the last two and a half years, the whole world is suffering from the virus of COVID-19. Therefore, if the centralized one price, one drug policy is implemented smoothly, then not only will the price of medicines be curbed, the immorality of the drug business will also end.