India finds two more toxic syrups months after poisoning deaths

NEW DELHI: India’s drug regulator has found that a cough syrup and an anti-allergy syrup made by Norris Medicines are toxic, according to a government report, months after Indian-made cough syrups were linked to 141 children’s deaths worldwide.

The medicines were contaminated either with diethylene glycol (DEG) or ethylene glycol (EG), the same contaminants found in the cough syrups that caused the deaths in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon since the middle of last year. This is the first time in at least two years that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has flagged any DEG and EG contamination in its monthly reports as the country tries to crack down on its $42 billion drug industry dominated by small players.

H.G. Koshia, commissioner of Gujarat state’s Food and Drug Control Administration, said on Wednesday that it had inspected Norris’s factory last month and ordered it to suspend production and recall the drugs.

“The company failed miserably on compliance parameters of good manufacturing practices,” Koshia said. “Adequate water system was not there. The air-handling unit was also not up to the mark. In the larger interest of public health, we ordered the unit to stop production.”

Norris Managing Director Vimal Shah declined to comment outside business hours.

The company’s Trimax Expectorant contained 0.118 percent of EG, while allergy drug Sylpro Plus Syrup had 0.171 percent of EG and 0.243 percent of DEG, according to tests at a CDSCO laboratory, according to its list of “not of standard quality/spurious/adulterated/misbranded” drugs for August uploaded on its website. Koshia said Norris used to export the cough syrup, but did not say where.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the safe limit, based on internationally accepted standards, is no more than 0.10 percent.