India: The Dustbin for Deadly Banned Drugs

“Medicines giveth, medicines taketh away”. The second half of the saying might seem a bit exaggerated, but there is a certain amount of truth in it. As much as medicines have proven to be a boon to us, they are just a small misstep away from becoming a curse, even if consumed with a valid prescription. 

March 29^th night, an hour before I was supposed to travel overnight with my family to Mysore, my brother Anjan started nose bleeding profusely.  Though a common occurrence, it turned us all frantic as the blood was just oozing non-stop.

We made him sit upright and tilt his head back, and kept the ice cubes on the bridge of the nose to clot the bleeding. I then found that it is advised to lean forward, pinch the nose and breathe through the mouth, which in our case unfortunately only aggravated the bleeding. We immediately called our family doctor who prescribed a coagulant as a precautionary medication for the journey. In spite of the medication, the bleeding continued intermittently accompanying his sneezes.

The next morning at Mysore, he was taken to the ENT, who fixed some sticks and cotton into his nostril for a day to stop the bleeding so that he could clear and examine his nostrils to identify the cause, if any. Apparently on interrogation, the doctor found Anjan had consumed Vicks Action 500 which he hypothesized could have worsened the bleeding (caused due to heat).

I then googled to know more about it, and found Vicks action 500 is a banned drug, but still sold in India! There are other drugs like D’Cold which are banned yet advertised in our country. The list of other such drugs can be found here.http://www.caclubindia.com/forum/b-a-n-n-e-d-medicines-in-i-n-d-i-a-beware--115602.asp

Having done my masters in pharmacy, I knew that drugs go through various phases of clinical trials to be assessed for the efficacy and toxicity and also followed up for the same after marketing. But it is now that I found that both Vicks action 500 and D’Cold were banned globally after post marketing surveillance. This is because they both contain Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) which causes elevation in blood pressure, which commonly leads to nose bleeds, and it also enhances the risk of haemorrhagic strokes. Now they have introduced Vicks action 500 extra (devoid of PPA), which has passed through the stringent regulatory guidelines. Surprisingly, most of us, irrespective of our fields are oblivious of it. Experience teaches us better lessons than the books do- that’s my personal experience!

So what has this experience taught me? I’ve only read during my bachelor’s that even for physicians themselves, it is never advisable to self prescribe medicines! People consume different brands of paracetamol whenever they have even a slight headache, not knowing it chronically leads to severe liver damage. Never self-prescribe drugs. Also, whenever a doctor prescribes a drug, we should not blindly trust the doctor and take the efforts to know what drugs we are consuming, and the potential side effects it could have.

Better Safe than Sorry!