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News:
- Recently, the Union Health Ministry banned on the retail sale and private manufacture of oxytocin.
Important facts:
2. Uses of oxytocin:
- The drug, a synthetic version of a human hormone, is a life-saver for women.
- Doctors use it to induce labour in pregnant women and to stem postpartum bleedings.
- Because of its critical role in maternal health, the World Health Organisation recommends it as the drug of choice in postpartum haemorrhage.
3. The government ban this because:
- Misuse of the hormone in the dairy industry.
- Oxytocin stimulates lactation in cattle; dairy farmers inject the drug indiscriminately to increase milk production.
- This has spawned several unlicensed facilities that manufacture the drug for veterinary use.
- oxytocin leads to infertility in dairy animals
- It has also been linked to mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder.
- However, a 2014 study by researchers at the National Institute of Nutrition concluded that oxytocin content in buffalo milk did not alter with injections.
4. Suggestions:
- Strengthen regulations and crack down on illegal production.
- Despite calls for a complete ban on over-the-counter sale of antibiotics, India has been reluctant to do so.
- In much of rural India, more people still die due to a lack of antibiotics than due to antibiotic-resistance.
- If only a single public sector unit manufactures the drug, as the government plans, this could lead to drug shortages and price hikes.
