New Delhi: The central government’s plan to ban private companies from manufacturing or selling the hormone oxytocin, due to its alleged misuse by the cattle industry, has been dashed by the Delhi high court.
The life-saving drug is used to prevent deaths during pregnancy and also to induce labour. India’s maternal mortality rate is high – 130 women die per 100,000 live births.
The court called the government’s proposal “unscientific and arbitrary”.
The central health ministry had said in June this year, that the manufacture of oxytocin for domestic use by any private player would be banned. The government then restricted the manufacture of the hormone to only one state-run public sector undertaking – Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceutical Limited (KAPL).
In a 100-page judgement, Justice Ravindra Bhat and Justice A.K. Chawla said that the central government did not “consider the deleterious effect to the public generally and women particularly, of possible restricted supply”.
Also read: PMO Keen on Regulating Oxytocin, a Hormone Misused on Cattle
The government’s decision was “impairing lives of thousands of innocent young mothers,” said the judges.
The Wire had reported on the government’s ill preparedness to bring about this ban. Although the ban was supposed to kick in from July 1 onwards, The Wire reported that KAPL had not even started production for the entire country’s supply as of July 2, 2018.
Cattle vs women
The judges also responded to the central government’s decision to prioritise the lives of cattle over the lives of pregnant women. The order says that the government had placed importance on “what was perceived to be widespread veterinary misuse”, but did not care to notice that in fact, oxytocin is an essential drug to prevent maternal fatalities.
Despite being the minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi has also been advocating for the clamp down on oxytocin since at least 2014, citing concerns about the treatment of cattle.
In court though, the judges had asked the government to come forward with the scientific evidence or data about the alleged misuse of oxytocin in cattle. The judges found that until 2015, the central government said that scientific experts had ruled out this possibility.
The judges continued to go hard on the government, saying that it is these baseless assertions by the central government that “appeared to have weighed most”.
Government unable to produce evidence
At several places, the order records how the government came up red, unable to back their allegations of misuse of the hormone.
Even as recently as 2014, government committee’s said, “there was no data to support the allegation of misuse of Oxytocin”.
With regards to the misuse of the hormone on cattle and for over-milking cows, the judgement finds “there is no scientific evidence about long term adverse impact because of Oxytocin use on milch cattle i.e. cows and buffaloes.”
Government reports, such as a report from the National Dairy Research institute (NDRI) said that there “is no scientific evidence that artificial use of Oxytocin has adversely affected progeny of cattle and buffaloes resulting in dwindling of livestock.”
Also read: Now, the Government Is Pulling a ‘Demonetisation’ on Life-Saving Hormone Oxytocin
The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has also said that no ill effects have been observed in animals, during experiments carried out on the use of oxytocin.
In 2014, the government said in parliament to a query on if oxytocin was used to increase the size of fruits and vegetables and on teenage girls. To this the government replied that they only knew of reports in the media, “However, scientific data on the extent of such practices is not available.”
Prime Minister’s office is interested in regulating oxytocin
All this evidence or lack of evidence notwithstanding, in July, The Wire also reported that the matter was being monitored even at the level of the Prime Minister’s Office, with the principal secretary to the prime minister writing to drug controllers to watch out for the smuggling of oxytocin.
The need to clamp down on oxytocin despite its life saving potential has become a policy-priority for the government, with at least six different government bodies working on it, including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Union health ministry, NITI Aayog, the Central Board of Excise and Customs, the women and child development ministry and various state police.