What is the issue?
- The Union Health Ministry has recently decided to restrict the production and sale of oxytocin. Click here to know more
- The rationale of the decision is contested and the ban is expected to have severe public health consequences.
What is the key reason?
- The ban is primarily motivated by the misuse of the hormone in the dairy industry.
- Oxytocin stimulates lactation in cattle.
- Dairy farmers thus inject the drug indiscriminately to increase milk production.
- This has increased the unlicensed facilities that are manufacturing the drug for veterinary use.
- There is also a concern that oxytocin led to infertility in dairy animals.
- It has also been linked to mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder (mammary gland).
- Another concern is the exposure of milk consumers to oxytocin drug through dairy products.
Why is oxytocin crucial?
- Nearly 45,000 Indian women die due to causes related to childbirth each year.
- Oxytocin, a synthetic version of a human hormone, is a life-saver for these women.
- It is used to induce labour in pregnant women and to stall postpartum bleeding.
- The World Health Organization recommends it as the drug of choice in postpartum haemorrhage.
- The ban thus seems to be ignoring this critical role of oxytocin in maternal health.
What are the contentions?
- Validity - There are some studies that add validity to the above concerns of ill-effects of oxytocin on cattle.
- However, the science behind these claims is unclear and is not properly established.
- The National Dairy Research Institute has said that there was no evidence that oxytocin led to infertility.
- Another research claims that oxytocin content in buffalo milk did not alter with injections.
- However, even if the ill-effects of oxytocin are real, a ban is not the right solution.
- Shortage - Manufacture of the drug only by a single public sector unit could lead to drug shortages and price hikes.
- The right approach would have been to strengthen regulation and crack down on illegal production.
- Monopolising production will only remove the low-price options from the market.
Source: The Hindu
