Senate resolution calls for reining in pharma companies

The Upper House of Parliament swung into action Friday moving a resolution to rein in pharma companies, after over 100 people lost their lives taking substandard heart drugs in Punjab. Senator Haji Adeel of Awami National Party (ANP) drew the attention of Senate Chairman Farooq H Naek to allow him to move a resolution on the issue by suspending rules of business, which he said will be done on Monday.
Haji Adeel pressed for compensating the heirs of those who lost their near and dear ones. The government must come up with tangible solutions so that such happenings could be checked in future, he added. Speaking on a point of order, minister for petroleum and natural resources Asim Hussain, who is also a doctor, said under international law, the manufacturers of the medicine are bound to compensate the grieved families in case such incidents happen after the use of the medicines of the company.
The minister said that after 18th Amendment, the setting up of a drug regulatory authority has been affected while local drugs testing laboratories had no capacity to examine any drug according to international standard. Asim was of the view that all the pharmaceutical companies should not be blamed as the country is importing drugs worth $1.2 billion every year, which will affect its import.
Senators Salim Saifullah Khan, Colonel Tahir Hussain Mashhadi (Retd) and Begum Kalsoom Perveen called for setting up of a quality control system at federal level in order to avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the House that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had registered cases in spurious drugs issue besides arresting three drug manufacturers, who were later released on Supreme Court directives.
The medicines have also been seized from Lahore and Karachi and the names of accused had been put on Exit Control List (ECL), he said, adding that the FIA is probing as to how the local labs tested such medicines and declared them fit for human consumption.
Meanwhile, the minister said that involvement of third force could not be ruled out in the murder of wife and daughter of Balochistan MPA Bakhtiar Domki as both were the sister and niece of Brahamdagh Bugti. He said joint investigation team (JIT) had already been formed comprising representatives of intelligence agencies and police to investigate the case and President Asif Ali Zardari has issued special directives to look into the case personally.
Strongly reacting to a statement of US President Obama regarding drone strikes inside Pakistan in which he had termed the attacks necessary to eliminate terrorists, Professor Khurshid Ahmed of Jamat-e-Islami said Pakistan is a sovereign state and the government should clearly define its policy on drone attacks to the US.
He objected to a statement of US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, in which he said that the terms and conditions given by Pakistan's Parliament would be negotiable. Professor Khurshid questioned as to how the US came to know about the terms and conditions of the parliamentary panel as they are yet to be made public. The first quarterly report for 2011-12 of the State Bank of Pakistan central board of directors on the state of Pakistan's economy was also laid before the House by federal minister for finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh.