New Delhi, June 16: Our country is full of quacks and fakes in all spheres of life, whether it is purchase of textiles, or electronic goods or medicines. There is an overabundance of fakes even in the medical profession.
On every street, vendors dangling stethoscopes and carrying thermometers are getting away posing as doctors. Only when somebody dies because of quackery, is there a hue and cry to get rid of the counterfeits of the medical profession.
According to the Supreme Court: "A person who studies one system of medicine but practises another, is a quack." According to the same court, a practicing allopathic doctor should be registered with the Medical Council. Ayurvedic doctors need to be registered with the Bhartiya Ayurvedic Chikitsa Parishad and homeopathic doctors should be registered with the homeopathic board. The government’s anti-quackery drive is several years old but there are no tangible results yet, despite the orders of compulsory registration. It is doubtful whether quacks register themselves with their respective councils, and if they do not, there seems to be no mechanism to ensure that they do. Some inspectors are too willing to be compromised for a price. In fact, most homeopathic doctors freely prescribe allopathic medication. The police themselves do not know the fine print or even the law, or the Supreme Court judgments. Making registration mandatory to check quackery has not made any difference.
A few years ago, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested a person who used to sell fake MBBS, BAMS, RMI degrees. He used to openly advertise in the name of the Delhi Degree College. By the time he was arrested, he had reportedly sold over 5,000 fake degrees. The menace of quackery persists, despite government claim of action. There are an estimated 30,000 quacks in the national capital alone, and their number in the country would easily cross a million. As against 30,000 quacks in Delhi, the number of registered doctors is about 26,000.

With so many fake doctors thriving in our country, fake drugs cannot be far behind. According to the World Health Organisation, 35 per cent of the fake drugs produced in the world come from India which has a Rs 4,000-crore spurious drug market. About 20 per cent of the medicines in the country are fake. Many drugs, including those commonly used for headache and common cold, are fake or substandard. Of them, 60 per cent have no active ingredient and 16 per cent have harmful ingredients.



Spurious drugs are a major threat to people’s health and well-being. For the perplexed and baffled consumer, there is no choice but to be well-informed, vigilant and safeguard his interest by carefully examining the goods or medicines before buying them. His health, well-being and life may depend on it. The web of fake medicines spreads from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. In northern India, Bhagirath Palace in Delhi is reportedly the hub of the fake medicine trade. Other places serving as the breeding ground of fake drugs include Lucknow in UP, Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Indore in Madhya Pradesh, where like in other places, small-scale fake or substandard drug manufacturing units operate from garages, shanties and hovels. Most so-called medicines, but in reality fakes, are being churned out from slums under the most unhygienic conditions. They are harmful and cause complications leading to fatalities. Though the government, consumer bodies and even physicians express anguish at the prevalence of fake drugs, the fact remains that the racket operates due to laxity, casualness, neglect and even the connivance of the parties mentioned.



Unofficial figures assessed by consumer bodies estimate that more than 40 per cent of the medicines which are sold in rural markets are fake or sub-standard. That means three out of 10 fast moving consumer goods (FMCG, a collective term for cosmetics, toiletries and processed food products) in the market could be fake. The rough estimate is 10-30 per cent of cosmetics, toiletries, packaged food are counterfeit and 10 per cent of soft drinks sold as major brands are spurious. An AC Nielsen survey estimated the annual loss to the FMCG industry at Rs 2,600 crores and to the government, in unpaid taxes, at Rs 900 crores. Our drug regulatory authorities have no teeth, with few inspectors and even fewer experts. Manufacturing fake drugs is not a cognisable offence.



The identification of fake or substandard medicines is not an easy task. The following suggestions can help in discovering or ascertaining a fake. It is mandatory to mention the key ingredients, date of manufacture, batch number of the product on the label of the container; the fake may not possibly have it on the pack.



Printing, packaging, design and colour will be inferior and may come off. Pay close attention to advertisements regarding the packs. Similarly, chances are that in the case of lookalike products, manufacturer’s address will be missing. But fakes in most cases carry full details as in the original. Beware of the undue huge discounts given by retailers, discounts that are not backed by the manufacturer. Often this is to lure an unsuspecting buyer. However, in spite of the above suggestions, there is no guarantee that a fake will not be passed off as original. The Mashelkar Committee set up in 2002 by the Government of India has recommended amending the Act and the setting up of a national drug agency with some teeth. Its recommendations have been gathering dust like many other good proposals hidden in government cupboards. The government’s offensive has to be stronger than what it has been. To deal with the rising tide of spurious products to subside, hefty fines and imprisonment are necessary. These need to be accompanied with a campaign for consumer awareness by the government and the industry, in the interest of the consumer, who is central to the whole scheme of things.