Indiscriminate marketing of vaccines is questioned in India
Sheri Nakken wwithin@nccn.net
Sent: Friday, April 02, 1999 11:31 AM
The Lancet Volume 353, Number 9159 3 April 1999
NEWS
Indiscriminate marketing of vaccines is questioned in India
Doctors and paediatricians in India have called for an end to "unscientific
and indiscriminate" marketing of vaccines not included in the
government-sponsored Expanded Prog-ramme of Immunisation (EPI) by drug
companies. While vaccines for chicken pox, typhoid, hepatitis A, hepatitis
B, and influenza have been approved by the drug controller of India for
marketing, none have been included in the EPI, no guidelines have been
issued for their use, and all are unaffordable for poor people.
Manufacturers are promoting these vaccines through schools, local residents
association, and some medical practitioners by distributing alarmist
literature about hepatitis B virus infections and infections such as typhus.
"They are going to schools and making a killing" , says Thekkekara John
Jacob, chairman of the Immunisation Committee of the Indian Academy of
Pediatrics (IAP). Desh Bhushan Jain, secretary of the Delhi Medical
Association says several thousand children in Delhi have been immunised
against hepatitis B without any scientific guidelines being followed.
"Drug companies are hiring incompetent ayurvedic doctors to immunise, and are even
offering monetary benefits to schools. Proper dosage is not being followed
at all." The IAP says unguided and unscientific mass immunisation could
interfere with epidemiology of some of the diseases.
An IAP panel has
recommended the inclusion of hepatitis-B vaccine in the EPI: "we understand
the financial implications of such a decision, but innovative ways could be
worked out to overcome this problem" , says Anand Prakash Dube convener of
the panel. The IAP has also suggested reintroducing a cheaper vaccine
against typhus which the government has rejected for a costly imported
version.
Dinesh C Sharma
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Director email - wwithin@nccn.net http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/welcome.html
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