Indian doctors raise concerns about oxytocin restrictions

Doctors have warned that moves to restrict the manufacture and sale of oxytocin by the Indian government could leave women at risk of haemorrhage.

The health ministry announced at the end of the April that only one public sector firm—Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals—would be able to make oxytocin from 1 July.1 It also banned the import of the drug and said that chemists would not be allowed to sell it.

The government cited a 2016 judgement by a court in the state of Himachal Pradesh that called for restrictions on the use of oxytocin because of its …