Protest against drug price rise: Parishad

October 22, 2014 11:20 am | Updated May 23, 2016 03:53 pm IST - Kozhikode:

Science movement leader K.P. Aravindan speaks at a seminar organised by the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad in Kozhikode on Tuesday.  Photo: K. Ragesh

Science movement leader K.P. Aravindan speaks at a seminar organised by the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad in Kozhikode on Tuesday. Photo: K. Ragesh

The ongoing attempts to dilute the Indian patent laws giving into the pressure of international pharmaceutical lobbies will have serious consequences in the country’s health sector, Dr. K. P. Aravindan, noted science movement leader and Professor of Pathology, Government Medical College, Kozhikode, has said.

The move will cause further skyrocketing of the already soaring prices of life-saving medicines in the country, he said.

Unhealthy tendencies

Inaugurating a seminar organised by the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) as part of a sensitisation campaign against the “unhealthy tendencies and developments in the health pharmaceutical sector” at the Sports Council Hall here on Tuesday, Dr. Aravindan said Kerala would bear the brunt of any such moves, it being one of the largest consumers of drugs in the country.

“A time has come for the entire citizens of the State to stand up and protest against this irresponsible move,” said Dr. Aravindan.

He said the recent decision of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to withdraw the provisions which allowed it to fix a ceiling for the prices of certain ‘non-essential’ drugs had already caused increase in the prices of many important drugs including those used for cancer cure.

Speaking on the occasion, KSSP leader Prof. T.P. Kunhikkannan said that the Parishad was organising the seminar as part of mobilising public opinion to protest against the “callous” attitude of the authorities in bending rules in favour of the international pharmaceutical lobbies chiefly from the US.

20 per cent

The science movement said that around 20 per cent of the country’s annual sale of medicine was in Kerala.

It is also one of the States where treatment is the costliest in the country.

Costliest

“More than 70 per cent of treatment expense is spent on medicines here,” he said, maintaining that the recent developments in the pharmaceutical sector were sure to badly affect the life of the people.

“It is important that the public here is rightly sensitised about the huge trap they are going to be caught in,” said Prof. Kunhikkannan. Parishad leader E.P. Ratnakaran also spoke.

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