Deadly Neglect

Tamil Nadu, long celebrated for its industrial prowess and political theatre, has lately distinguished itself for a far grimmer reason. In a horrifying medical scandal, at least 22 children have died across Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan after consuming Coldrif, a cough syrup manufactured in the Southern State by Sresan Pharmaceuticals. What was supposed to ease sniffles and sore throats turned lethal. Tests revealed that the syrup contained diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in printing ink, far above safe limits.

G. Ranganathan, the Kancheepuram-based owner of Sresan, was arrested in Chennai by the Madhya Pradesh police. It came to light that the company had been adding up to a staggering 48 percent of DEG to Coldrif against the legal limit of 0.1 percent. And yet the syrup was allowed to flow into markets for years, leaving behind a bitter trail of grieving parents and children suffering from liver and kidney ailments.

This shocking has exposed Tamil Nadu’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Two senior drug inspectors have been suspended, but the real failure is systemic. Sresan Pharmaceuticals, first registered in 1990 and later struck off the Ministry of Corporate Affairs register, continued operating under a proprietary structure. Unbilled containers of toxic chemicals lay hidden in its factory. Stop-production orders and license suspensions, issued only after deaths occurred, are belated gestures, a bureaucratic fig leaf over a scandal of lethal negligence. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin may trumpet governance reforms, but these words ring hollow when a regulatory system allows children to die from preventable poison.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has rightly called for Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda’s intervention, noting that innocent doctors who prescribed Coldrif are being wrongfully targeted. The root cause is the manufacturer’s reckless adulteration and the FDA’s years of oversight failures. The deaths demand a national reckoning on pharmaceutical regulation, stricter quality control and accountability mechanisms that are enforced rather than papered over.

The Tamil Nadu government, predictably, emphasises the arrest of Ranganathan and the dramatic police operation that captured him. Yet. these are distractions. The real question is why a deadly syrup could be produced unchecked in the first place. DEG-laced Coldrif crossed state lines, killed children, and raised the possibility that other batches might have been exported, prompting the World Health Organisation to seek clarifications from Indian authorities. In a state that boasts of effective governance, this is a damning indictment of incompetence.

Oversight in pharmaceuticals amounts to the difference between life and death. If Tamil Nadu wishes to salvage credibility, it must conduct a thorough, transparent investigation into its FDA department, the political accountability of ministers and the chain of regulatory failures that allowe people like Sresan to operate with impunity. Meanwhile, Nadda must ensure that such lapses do not recur nationwide, making it clear that public health cannot be sacrificed on the altar of bureaucratic negligence. The federal government must act decisively before another preventable tragedy unfolds.