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The face-off between retail chemists and online pharmacies seems to be headed for a flashpoint with the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists declaring a nationwide strike on October 14.
The AIOCD represents about eight lakh chemists and distributors of medicines across the country and they are protesting the Government’s move to allow the sale of medicines over the Internet.
“We are opposed to any amendment to the Drugs & Cosmetics Act (1940) to allow online sale of medicines. Despite the Drug Controller saying that companies should not sell medicines online, they continue to sell as drug authorities in several States are not taking action,” JS Shinde, President of the AIOCD, told BusinessLine.
The chemists’ protest comes even as the Drug Consultative Committee constituted a sub-committee to review comments on the sale of medicines through the Internet and its impact on public health. The sub-committee is headed by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Commissioner Dr Harshadeep Kamble.
Shinde said his organisation had presented its views to the Drug Controller and the sub-committee. The chemists caution that allowing the online sale of medicine would open the flood-gates for low quality and misbranded drugs, even as it would spur addiction to easily available drugs. It would also increase the risk of adverse drug reactions given the threat of irrational use of medicines, the apex chemist body said. The sale of medicines online under the Act is illegal, it added.
“Internet online pharmacies supply all goods such as I-pills, MTP kits, anti-depression, codine cough syrups, without confirming the authenticity of prescription and patient,” the AIOCD alleged.
Changes being made to the Act to “protect the interest” of a handful of online players will affect the livelihoods of eight lakh chemists and 80 lakh workers and their families, Shinde said.
Doctor associations too have sounded a note of caution on the possible easy access to prescription-driven antibiotics, psychiatric drugs, cough syrups, and painkillers.
Online pharmacy representatives, however, say the Government needs to amend the Act to cater to a generation that is e-enabled. While some of them are careful to steer clear of prescription-driven medicines, others are putting in place measures to ensure that pharmacists dispense the medicines, as is legally required, he observed.
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