Editorial
Tip of the Iceberg
| DRUGS USED in the treatment of cancer, especially those required for chemotherapy are costly because they belong to the life-saving group of medicines. Cancer diagnosed at very advanced stages is irreversible but certain categories of it are treatable with reasonably good results if detected early and taken up under specialist care.In that kind of a scenario, profit margin would be huge for dealers and traders who can pass off spurious anti-cancer drugs or those that have expired potency dates as genuine ones in the market.The Daily Star in its last Friday issue front-paged a report titled "Raw deal for cancer patients" which brought into sharp focus the racket wreaking havoc on cancer treatment in the country. Barring limited local production, most of the cancer drugs are imported under registration with the Drug Administration authority so that the latter ought to be in the know of the procurement level in a given year. The third source of their entry into the local market is, of course, smuggling. And there are reasons to believe that smuggled varieties are outstripping the local and imported supplies of the drugs. The resultant bane is three-fold: cancer patients are being shortchanged topped off by an aggravation of their carcinogenic conditions; not only substandard but dangerous substitutes are flooding the market; and finally, Gresham's law about 'bad money driving good money out of circulation' is coming into play with the locally manufactured drugs receiving a setback through some unsold stocks, ironically where the industries concerned should have been incentivised. Since the sellers of fake medicines can easily undercut prices the marketability of imported drugs, too, is affected badly.
We think this is just a tip of the Iceberg. The problem of drug-smuggling or intrusion of substandard medicines is not merely confined to cancer treatment; in fact this has ensnared the entire market of medicines. The Drug Administration is supposed to be the designated central authority but it is clearly losing the battle against the scourge. It needs to be revamped in term of manpower, equipment, including laboratory facility, and enforcement capacity.
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