Image take from here
Suchita Saigal, a name familiar to the Spicy IP readers, brings yet another piece of her refreshing and analytical reasoning to the fore for us, that has been presented as follows:
I am of the opinion that a good post should begin with an interesting title. Hence, given the subject matter of this post, I searched for the word ‘bitter’ on Google hoping to come up with something interesting and witty, maybe a movie title, on the lines of swallowing a bitter pill. Much to my surprise, the first search result was “Bitter (beer) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”. I might add that this is a result I entirely approve of even though it is rather early in the week.
Moving on, recently Livemint published an article written by Roger Bate on counterfeit medicines and their production chain. The article was titled, ‘Made in India, Faked in China’ (Surprise!! They never gave me points for originality. Going by this article, China won’t get any points for originality either). Bate is an economist whose work currently focuses on counterfeit and substandard medicines, particularly those in the developing world. On this subject, he has also written a book titled, “Making a Killing: The Deadly Implications of the Counterfeit Drug Trade”.
The article is interesting as it focuses on the fact that India might be unjustly accused of producing counterfeit medicines. This is not to say that no counterfeit drugs originate or are manufactured in India but that in several cases (a fairly high percentage) the counterfeit medicines are actually manufactured in China and are labeled as having been manufactured in India. While the Chinese Government insists that it is cracking down on counterfeit medicines, Bate’s study shows that their claim may have to be swallowed with a pinch of salt.
In terms of methodology, I reproduce the following extract from the article: “My (Bate’s) research team collected drugs from 22 cities in 20 countries over the past four years. Of these, 911 antimalarial and antibiotic products were, according to their packaging, made in India. They were procured from 14 countries, mainly in Africa, but also in Thailand and India. Of those products, 79 (or 8.7%), failed basic quality control tests and hence were unfit for their intended use. Of these 79 products, we were able to establish that 37 were counterfeits. More products may have been counterfeit, but without responses from the manufacturers or regulatory agencies, it was not always possible to be sure. Of the 37 counterfeits identified, 22 were definitely faked in China and delivered straight to African nations from China. Hence, from our small sample, over half (59%) of the fake Indian drugs were actually made in China.”
In terms of process, it seems that the counterfeit medicines produced in China are transported to Lagos, Nigeria from where they are distributed across Africa. However, fortunately, the counterfeiters are not in the midst of an Indian romance, they’ll fake anything popular (this is when one counterfeit drugs manufacturer tells another, Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn!). For instance, ongoing research shows that fake Artesunat, a Vietnamese antimalarial originally made by the Ho Chi Minh-based Mekophar Chemical Pharmaceutical, was found in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and also in Thailand—all the handiwork of Chinese counterfeiters.
On account of the circumstances described above, India has every right to pressurize China to crackdown on the counterfeit industry. Meanwhile, it’s not all our fault you know… why couldn’t England just lose the match!
P.s.: for the first time I can safely say that I watched the video of Made in India by Alisha Chinoy (i.e. Milind Soman) for purely academic and research oriented purposes.
Posting ‘Made In India’ when it is actually ‘Made in China’ is falsifying its origins, that alone should be a crime. This should be not just be dealt with India and China but should be discussed in U.N. so that all of the countries can speak their peace. Since China is not just fooling government but consumers as well. I think the Chinese look the other way when they know duplicate products are being manufactured because how else will all those Chinese make a living since their population is also in the billion range. And of course, we posting all these comments will never get to them since they block like 2/3 of the web sites in China!