Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in India has permitted the reopening of a factory which is operated by Marion Biotech. This is the same company that produced cough syrups for the children of Uzbekistan, related to 56 deaths last year. This firm is also among the three other companies whose cough syrups were linked to the death of 141 children in Uzbekistan, Gambia, and Cameroon by the World Health Organization (WHO) and some other agencies.
Marion is based in Uttar Pradesh and the drug controller of the state said “There is no known case of a lack of quality in other medicines manufactured by the firm” in the most recent order. The firm’s license was also canceled in March last year as it was linked to the worst waves of such poisoning that the world has ever seen. The official of the state, Shashi Mohan Gupta said “The appeal of the manufacturing firm is partially accepted” in the most recent order which was published on September 14. However, the letter claimed, “Its permission to make products using propylene glycol (PG) is cancelled, and it is allowed to make and sell all other products.” Mr. Gupta declined to comment on the letter further.
On Wednesday, Mr. Gupta had a conversation with Reuters where he said that Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi, India’s Controller General of Drugs had written a letter to Marion Biotech so that they can initiate the plan of preventive and corrective actions. Both the company and Mr. Raghuvanshi declined to comment immediately on the issue.
The factory of Marion Biotech was closed in March last year after an analysis report was made public by Uzbekistan’s Health Ministry. In the report, two of the company’s cough syrups were mentioned that were linked to the death of children. These were Ambronol and DOK-1 Max which according to the report contained unacceptable amounts of toxins diethylene glycol (DEG) and ethylene glycol (EG). The amount of toxins that were found in these cough syrups is not appropriate for human consumption. Following this report, the Government of India did tests in government laboratories that found 22 samples by the firm to be “adulterated and spurious”.
