A national television channel aired two debates, on successive days recently, following the investigations/revelations by a NGO into the harmful pesticide contents of cola drinks. The two debates had the same content but in different formats and had the same (main) players: the chief of the NGO, the chief of a media organization (presumably the cola companies are either present or prospective clients of the organization, which explains his/its compulsive altruism) and the president of the association of pesticide manufacturers.
The pro-cola arguments were on predictable lines and both missed the point. The media chief’s argument was that as the two cola companies are multinationals they would not risk staking their impeccable reputation built over time and at considerable cost, by selling substandard/harmful products. He argued with great vehemence and articulation that their standards were “high” with a trace of unspoken condescension that they were “higher” than those practised in India. The president of the pesticides association argued that as the universe was permeated with pesticides a few micrograms of pesticide (give or take a milligram or two!) in the cola drinks was not going to harm any body.
The point that they both missed was that the NGO did not seek a ban on the colas. It merely sought setting standards for their contents, which the vaunting multinationals would not be averse to conform to in their home countries.
But the two arguments put forward to malign the NGO as mere publicity-seeking-whistle-blowing by staging a la David and Goliath battle should be answered. We will take up the “universe being permeated with pesticides…” argument first.
In his acclaimed thesis on the “Limits to Medicine” Ivan Illich describes how disease control measures in Borneo resulted in paradoxical spread of other, much more fatal diseases. For example, insecticides used to control malaria created conditions congenial to the incidence of bubonic plague. Illich quotes from “Conservation News” July 1973: “…insecticides used in villages to control malaria vectors also accumulated in cockroaches, most of which are resistant. Geckoes fed on these, became lethargic and fell prey to cats. The cats died, rats multiplied and with rats came the threat of epidemic bubonic plague. The army had to parachute cats into the jungle village.” (Illich, Ivan. 1981. Limits to Medicine. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Page: 26)
The second argument about a “Caesar can do no wrong”, of respectable multinationals upholding global standards, too needs serious academic consideration. The drug chloramphenicol researched and marketed by Parke Davis (now a division of Pfizer) under the brand name Chloromycetin, was indeed a miracle drug for people in the tropical countries prone to salmonella infections known in common parlance as typhoid. Before the advent of the drug the disease had no cure; had to run its course of prolonged, debilitating morbidity and mortality. But the miracle drug was a double-edged knife because, in addition to its curative powers, it also causes side effects termed blood dyscrasias in medical lingo, which for the layman means killing the bone marrow that produces red blood cells. Nothing strange perhaps as a strong weapon can be lifesaving or life threatening depending upon whether it is properly used or not.
It is here, we have to look at Caesar’s conduct. If packing leaflets of a product warned patients that “blood dyscrasias are not uncommonly found”, (this was how the packing leaflets supplied in India read in the seventies) it was not just clever copywriting that it reflected, nor the expendability of third world populations (product literatures conform to much more stringent standards in developed countries and can not get away with such convoluted prose or semantic obscurantism).
However we look askance if Caesar were to promote the drug for common ailments like acne. Unfortunately, it was not ‘were’ but ‘was’. Caesar did promote the drug for acne not in any third world country but in the epitome of global standards, the USA.
The Supreme Court of California heard a case in which an otherwise normal housewife, a part time teacher was prescribed Chloromycetin, not for typhoid, but for a lung infection for which there are several other remedies. According to the case submitted to the court, the unfortunate woman died of aplastic anaemia caused by the ingestion of the drug. A haematologist who tendered evidence in the case opined that the woman developed aplastic anaemia because of the administration of Chloromycetin. The details brought out in the trial point out that, notwithstanding the (US) FDA's efforts to require adequate warnings, the company aggressively promoted the drug by way of “give-aways” and full-page journal advertisements, which carried no warnings. The company fought the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, where it lost it. (Liability for over-promoting a drug - Stevens v. Parke, Davis & Co., 507 P.2d 653 - Cal 1973).
The point in narrating the three-decade-old case is that for commercial enterprises, commercial considerations weigh more notwithstanding their compulsive altruism. Secondly if the case could happen in probably the most regulated industry (after armaments and nuclear fissile materials), then what prevents a ‘life-style’ industry from cutting a few corners to strengthen its bottom line?
The answer lies in not throwing the baby with the bathwater but setting standards and strictly enforcing them as demanded by the NGO. This is what the epitome of global standards, the USA does!
The pro-cola arguments were on predictable lines and both missed the point. The media chief’s argument was that as the two cola companies are multinationals they would not risk staking their impeccable reputation built over time and at considerable cost, by selling substandard/harmful products. He argued with great vehemence and articulation that their standards were “high” with a trace of unspoken condescension that they were “higher” than those practised in India. The president of the pesticides association argued that as the universe was permeated with pesticides a few micrograms of pesticide (give or take a milligram or two!) in the cola drinks was not going to harm any body.
The point that they both missed was that the NGO did not seek a ban on the colas. It merely sought setting standards for their contents, which the vaunting multinationals would not be averse to conform to in their home countries.
But the two arguments put forward to malign the NGO as mere publicity-seeking-whistle-blowing by staging a la David and Goliath battle should be answered. We will take up the “universe being permeated with pesticides…” argument first.
In his acclaimed thesis on the “Limits to Medicine” Ivan Illich describes how disease control measures in Borneo resulted in paradoxical spread of other, much more fatal diseases. For example, insecticides used to control malaria created conditions congenial to the incidence of bubonic plague. Illich quotes from “Conservation News” July 1973: “…insecticides used in villages to control malaria vectors also accumulated in cockroaches, most of which are resistant. Geckoes fed on these, became lethargic and fell prey to cats. The cats died, rats multiplied and with rats came the threat of epidemic bubonic plague. The army had to parachute cats into the jungle village.” (Illich, Ivan. 1981. Limits to Medicine. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Page: 26)
The second argument about a “Caesar can do no wrong”, of respectable multinationals upholding global standards, too needs serious academic consideration. The drug chloramphenicol researched and marketed by Parke Davis (now a division of Pfizer) under the brand name Chloromycetin, was indeed a miracle drug for people in the tropical countries prone to salmonella infections known in common parlance as typhoid. Before the advent of the drug the disease had no cure; had to run its course of prolonged, debilitating morbidity and mortality. But the miracle drug was a double-edged knife because, in addition to its curative powers, it also causes side effects termed blood dyscrasias in medical lingo, which for the layman means killing the bone marrow that produces red blood cells. Nothing strange perhaps as a strong weapon can be lifesaving or life threatening depending upon whether it is properly used or not.
It is here, we have to look at Caesar’s conduct. If packing leaflets of a product warned patients that “blood dyscrasias are not uncommonly found”, (this was how the packing leaflets supplied in India read in the seventies) it was not just clever copywriting that it reflected, nor the expendability of third world populations (product literatures conform to much more stringent standards in developed countries and can not get away with such convoluted prose or semantic obscurantism).
However we look askance if Caesar were to promote the drug for common ailments like acne. Unfortunately, it was not ‘were’ but ‘was’. Caesar did promote the drug for acne not in any third world country but in the epitome of global standards, the USA.
The Supreme Court of California heard a case in which an otherwise normal housewife, a part time teacher was prescribed Chloromycetin, not for typhoid, but for a lung infection for which there are several other remedies. According to the case submitted to the court, the unfortunate woman died of aplastic anaemia caused by the ingestion of the drug. A haematologist who tendered evidence in the case opined that the woman developed aplastic anaemia because of the administration of Chloromycetin. The details brought out in the trial point out that, notwithstanding the (US) FDA's efforts to require adequate warnings, the company aggressively promoted the drug by way of “give-aways” and full-page journal advertisements, which carried no warnings. The company fought the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, where it lost it. (Liability for over-promoting a drug - Stevens v. Parke, Davis & Co., 507 P.2d 653 - Cal 1973).
The point in narrating the three-decade-old case is that for commercial enterprises, commercial considerations weigh more notwithstanding their compulsive altruism. Secondly if the case could happen in probably the most regulated industry (after armaments and nuclear fissile materials), then what prevents a ‘life-style’ industry from cutting a few corners to strengthen its bottom line?
The answer lies in not throwing the baby with the bathwater but setting standards and strictly enforcing them as demanded by the NGO. This is what the epitome of global standards, the USA does!
An Update
In its issue dated April 26, 2007, The New Indian Express reported from Shimla that a consumer court in Himachal Pradesh fined Pepsico Rs 1,00,000 after insects were found in one of its bottles. The Himachal Pradesh Consumer Redressal Commission directed the soft drink major to pay the amount to the consumer after a government laboratory termed the drink contaminated.
Apparently, the Caesar that can do no wrong, convinced of his invincibility approached the state forum against the orders of a district forum. This in a sense put paid to the media chief’s argument that all multinationals were epitomes of global standards. Or does he gloat over the fact that this happened to his client company’s rival? And in a way the case strengthens the argument of the president of the pesticides association: he can now claim that the pesticides in the bottle would have killed the insects anyway and what was the hullabaloo about?
