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Controversial contraceptive banned

The Central government, bowing to a Supreme Court order, said on Monday that it was banning quinacrine, a drug for female sterilisation.

Speaking to the media, All-India Democratic Women's Association general secretary Brinda Karat said the drug controller of India had given the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice A S Anand a written commitment that the use, distribution, sale and import of quinacrine for female sterilisation was being banned. An official notification to this effect was being gazetted, the bench was informed.

The apex court was hearing a public interest petition filed by AIDWA and the Centre for Social Medicine, JNU, seeking a ban on the drug and the prosecution of doctors and non-government organisations which had been using it unlawfully.

The bench, while disposing of the petition, said the order would not be with retrospective effect. It also turned down the petitioners's plea for follow-up on the health of women on whom this drug was used.

The petition, filed by counsel Kirti Singh, claimed that certain unscrupulous doctors and NGOs in Bangalore and West Bengal were using quinacrine to sterilise Indian women, in spite of clear warnings from the World Health Organisation against its use without further clinical trials.

The drug controller, instead of taking action against these doctors, had professed complete ignorance about the use of quinacrine for sterilisation.

While issuing notice to the drug controller and former Rajya Sabha member J K jain, who had allegedly imported the drug without clearance from the authorities, Justice Anand said, ''Indian women cannot be used as guinea pigs to try out drugs.''

Karat said the ban was significant in light of an 'ominous agreement' signed by the Indian and US governments in November 1997 on joint research on contraceptives. She said poor, uneducated women from third world countries are being used as guinea pigs by doctors in the developed countries.

''The bodies of third world women are up for sale in the globalised market,'' Dr Mohan Rao from JNU said, adding that the Indian government's decision would give a boost to the international movement to get the drug banned.

Quinacrine, an anti-malarial drug, has been used as a contraceptive since the 1970s. However, in India, it has been used as a contraceptive for the past five years, Karat said.

Pellets of the drug are inserted into the uterus and the resultant inflammation leads to sealing of the fallopian tubes.

But the drug was found to have a high failure rate in trials conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 1992.

Reports said that its use resulted in the development of the foetus outside the uterus. Also, quinacrine is known to cause mutations and is believed to cause cancer, Rao said.

UNI

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