More on the Plumpy'Nut controversy in India. Cipla, a company more famous for its generic versions of AIDS drugs, makes pre-packaged food supplements for export to Africa, according to Sumana Narayanan in the India environment magazine Down to Earth.
Cipla also told Narayanan that there is no market for such so-called ready-to-use claims no market in India. I find this hard to believe and hope Narayanan follows up on that idea. (She pointed me to her article in a comment to yesterday's post.)
Not sure if this is still true but from what I've heard about India regulation of AIDS drugs in the past, the government's own rules actually probibit the sale of the inexpensive AIDS generics made by Cipla and others locally in India. Makes you wonder if a similar "only for export" rule applies to RUTF as well?
For an update on Cipla, see "More on Cipla, Plumpy'Nut and India."
Click on "intellectual property" tag for previous posts on Plumpy'Nut patent issue:
2 comments:
Don't know about the AIDS drugs but there is no rule/law on RUTFs at all. So the question of 'only for export' does not arise in this case. Public health activists, doctors, international agencies like MSF have all been asking for some sort of policy/guidelines on treating SAM (and therefore RUTFs) but nothing so far. In fact some doctors have put proposed specific guidelines to the government of India but it has not been taken forward by the government.
Sumana
Agreed, the government's own rules actually prohibit the sale of the inexpensive AIDS generics made by Cipla and others locally in India.
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