{"id":246377,"date":"2023-06-05T20:21:29","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T14:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=246377"},"modified":"2023-06-05T20:21:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T14:51:29","slug":"spare-the-rod-and-change-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spare-the-rod-and-change-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Spare the rod and change the law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201c Spare the rod and change the law\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Hindu <\/strong>on <strong>5th june 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- issues related to development and management of health<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong>Issues related to generic medicine<\/p>\n<p><strong>News- The Director General of Health Services (DGHS)<\/strong> issued directions that doctors in Central government hospitals to prescribe only generic medicines instead of branded drugs.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why do Indian doctors lack trust in the quality of generic medicines?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Firstly,<\/strong> India has <strong>lagged behind countries like the U.S.<\/strong> in creating the appropriate legal and scientific standards ensuring <strong>bio-equivalence testing.<\/strong> It provide guarantees to doctors on the interchangeability of generic medicines with each other and the innovator drug.<\/p>\n<p>India mandated<strong> bio-equivalence testing only in 2017<\/strong>. <strong>Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB)<\/strong> recommended that existing generic drugs, approved prior to 2017 be tested for bioequivalence. But, it was ignored by the government.<\/p>\n<p>Many doctors have developed faith in particular brands. The <strong>patient feedback<\/strong> has taught them that other brands do not work as effectively.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second,<\/strong> it should be ensured that the drug remains stable through a s<strong>tressed supply chain<\/strong> in differing conditions of heat and humidity.<\/p>\n<p>The law prescribing <strong>mandatory stability testing <\/strong>prior to providing marketing approval became <strong>mandatory in India only in 2018. <\/strong>\u00a0But it did not apply retrospectively to generic drugs approved prior to 2018.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Hence it is not appropriate for the DGHS to force doctors to prescribe drugs by <strong>generic names.<\/strong> The DGHS must work towards resolving the <strong>genuine concerns<\/strong> of doctors.<\/p>\n<p>There is a need for regulations which require pharma companies to<strong> identify on their packaging <\/strong>whether a drug has been tested for <strong>bioequivalence and stability<\/strong> as required by the law.<\/p>\n<p>Building the confidence of doctors in generic medicine serves <strong>public interest<\/strong> better than threatening them with <strong>punitive action.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201c Spare the rod and change the law\u201d published in The Hindu on 5th june 2023. Syllabus: GS2- issues related to development and management of health Relevance: Issues related to generic medicine News- The Director General of Health Services (DGHS) issued directions that doctors in Central government&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spare-the-rod-and-change-the-law\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Spare the rod and change the law<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-246377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}