Movement Of Counterfeit Drugs Should Be Curbed: Ramadoss

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss Monday stressed the need for inter-state cooperation to prevent movement of substandard and counterfeit drugs.

"States should create a good system of intelligence-cum-legal wing, generate information and prepare dossiers on the culprits. They should share the information with all the stakeholders to facilitate curbing this menace," Ramadoss said.

Inaugurating the 37th Drug Consultative Committee meeting here, the minister said the central government was taking certain initiatives to upgrade the regulatory system by trying to establish proper coordination with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a regulatory body of the US.

"One of the major concerns of the government is lack of system and uniformity within the states," he said, adding that the regulatory bodies in state governments should join together for a common procedure.

As part of global harmonisation exercise, the government is trying to have working relations at regional level with the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) on drug legislation for human use, the minister said.

An area of major concern is advertisements by some unscrupulous manufacturers. Though the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954, is responsible for controlling such advertisements, it does not help, as it is "very old", he noted.

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Source-IANS
SRM