BMJ  2004;329:878 (16 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7471.878-f

News extra

Indian regulators are accused of laxity in not banning drugs

New Delhi Ganapati Mudur

Doctors and health activists in India have said that they would welcome a government ban on the arthritis drug rofecoxib but warned that there are other drugs withdrawn elsewhere in the world but still sold and prescribed in India.

They pointed out last week that Indian drug regulatory authorities have refused to ban the sale of 11 other drugs and over 80 combinations of drugs that have been discarded or have never been approved in many countries.

After the drug company Merck’s recent announcement of the worldwide withdrawal of rofecoxib (Vioxx) (BMJ 2004;329:816, 9 October) Indian drug officials said that they would examine Indian data on adverse reactions to decide whether to ban the drug. Earlier this week, the government consulted experts and indicated that it would ban rofecoxib, although local drug companies had said that it did not cause any harm in short term . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Merck withdraws arthritis drug worldwide
Debashis Singh
BMJ 2004 329: 816. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Regulation of drugs in india
kasi viswanathan
bmj.com, 15 Oct 2004 [Full text]
Re: Regulation of drugs in india
Jayashri Sankaranarayanan, Ph.D. (Purdue University)
bmj.com, 27 Oct 2004 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ