26th of January is observed as the Republic day of India. The constitution of India came in to practice on this day 72 years ago. The constitution of India is the longest written constitution of Any country on the planet! That is phenomenal, it has been amended 104 times since its inception. Its Supreme and everyone must obey it.
A lot of things still needs to be added to the constitution, FDA is a supreme body (in the USA) almost all over the globe (not constitutionally but intellectually). It has a control over both pharmaceuticals and Food safety. It has got a budget of $3.16 billion compared to $276 million in India (combined CDSCO-Central Drug Standard Control Organization $256 million + FSSAI-fod saftey and standard Authority of India $ 20 million). This is absurd and unconstitutional! How the heck you control the health of the Citizens when you have a mere peanuts for your controlling bodies?! Good, India is making headlines in Producing and supplying the Covid-19 vaccine to the world…good job but what about the great Generic market out there… where it needs a strict quality control and supply.
In the amazing book-THE BLUE SWEATER (about the birth of Social entrepreneurship company the ‘Accumen fund’ ) by Jacqueline Novogratz there is a narration about Indian generic medications (which made me to lower my head with despair): quoteing from the book –> I pushed her on what security really meant, and she told me she was not a philosopher. “I must spend a lot of time focused on remaining healthy,” she said. Though antiretrovirals were free in Rwanda, she said, only Indian generics were available under that program, and her body would not absorb them. Her income from the restaurant enabled her to pay for European generics-but doing that entailed keeping her income level fairly high.To grow her business, she was always seeking loans, but the banks rarely lent to HIV-positive borrowers, according to Charlotte, and they demanded 150 percent collateral.–> end of the quote.
Our generics doesn’t have such name because they don’t have such standards. Why can we not set the standards? Why not build a robust institution which control Drugs and Food under one roof. Make it so tight, that people wont be able to sell all super cheap refined food products with Calories& trans fat laden food stuffs to Indian people and give the subsidized poor quality generics to market & creating the rift between Allopathic practitioners and general public. MBBS or above doctors doesnt have anything against any generic medications…they only concerned about the Quality. If the quality is absolutely pure… then why not generics?
Bringing 100’s of Rafael fighter jets is not enough (its necessary, im not denying the fact), taking care of the Institutions which control public health on a long run is important.
Like how BCCI (Indian Cricket body) invested millions of Rupees in its core primary institutions resulted in competent bench strength(recently we have seen this), If Govt of India invest sufficient budget in these Institutions will certainly result in Much Much better results with chronic Non communicable disease such as Diabetes, heart diseases, there by reducing the ripple effects and create a vibrant citizens who can contribute to the nation building and upholding the constitution on India.
Happy Republic day 2021!
26.01.2021
Step 53
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