A Dhaka court has awarded three officials of Adflame Pharmaceuticals 10-years of rigorous imprisonment, the maximum punishment stipulated in the related law, for manufacturing adulterated paracetamol syrup which killed 76 children in the 1990s.
Judge Abdur Rashid of the Dhaka Drug Court also fined the three convicts Tk2 lakh each in the case, which was filed 22 years back.
The three convicts are Adflame Director Helena Pasha, Manager Mizanur Rahman and Production Officer Nigendra Nath Bala.
The court, however, acquitted two other accused – Noman and Afsar Pasha – as the plaintiff, the then drug superintendent Abul Khayer Chowdhury, did not mention their designations in the case.
“The convicts committed crimes against humanity. So, it is better to award them 10 years’ imprisonment – the maximum punishment under the Drug (Control) Ordinance, 1982,” the judge said while delivering the verdict.
The court later sent Helena, 75, and Mizanur, 68, who were present at the courtroom during the delivery of the judgement, to jail.
The other convict, Nigendra, remains fugitive since the case was filed in 1992. His punishment will be effective from the day of his arrest or surrender, the court said.
The names of three other accused – partners of the company Dr Anwar Pasha, Jahid Iftekhar Pasha and Israt Pasha – were dropped while framing of the charges on May 28, 1994 as they had died during the investigation period.
After the verdict, public prosecutor Shaheen Ahmed Khan said: “We are happy as the court awarded the three officials the highest punishment. We have got the verdict as expected.”
Until 1991, complaints were filed with the government relating to the death of as many as 76 children from acute renal failure after taking “Flammodol,” the paracetamol syrup produced by Adflame. The medicine contained diethylene glycol – a deadly industrial chemical.
The case was filed on December 19, 1992. Proceedings in the case had been stalled since 1994 following an order of the High Court. The trial resumed after November 11, 2009.
The case against Adflame was one of the four lodged against separate pharmaceutical companies. The three other manufacturers accused of producing the same adulterated paracetamol syrup were Polychem Laboratories Ltd, BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd and Rid Pharmaceuticals.
The fifth pharmaceutical – City Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd – was not prosecuted, apparently for having a close connection with the then ruling BNP high-ups.
According to the Adflame case, the child mortality rate suddenly shot up at Dhaka Shishu Hospital between 1990 and 1992, and all of them died from kidney failure.
On suspicion, the then director of the hospital Brig (retd) Mokbul Hossain verbally notified the drug administration about the matter on July 3, 1991. Several news media published news reports that many children were dying after taking adulterated paracetamol.
On November 25, 1992, Abul Khayer collected samples of “Flammodol” and sent it to the drug testing laboratory and the WHO for examination. It was then found to have contained diethylene glycol.
Dhaka Shishu Hospital’s kidney specialist Prof Mohammed Hanif came to experience the tragedy of hundreds of children dying from kidney failure in 1982, when he started his career as a resident doctor at the BSMMU (formerly PG Hospital).
Every day, patients coming in for treatment of failures of both kidneys and fevers, were dying despite being treated with dialysis. The doctors could not do anything to help them recover.
He saw the same situation happening at Shishu Hospital after he had been transferred there in 1986. The children were dying from renal failure. The physicians checked the hospital’s water sources as well as the houses of the victims and conducted several other tests but did not find anything that could explain the mystery.
Later the hospital authorities formed a committee with Prof Hanif as the chair. In 1990, they came to know that something was wrong with the paracetamol which was being administered to the children.
The children who were going to the hospital for minor surgeries started to experience renal failure, even though they did not have such complications earlier.
After reading a Newsweek article that talked about the adulteration of paracetamol in Nigeria, Prof Hanif was sure that paracetamol adulteration was behind the renal problems.
To convince the state authorities to do something, the probe body sent a sample of Adflame’s Flammodol to the government’s drug laboratory. But the laboratory did not respond.
Later they requested the Directorate General of Drug Administration to take a sample and send it to the drug laboratory. The laboratory again kept mum.
The committee then sent a sample to Japan and to Fisons – a British multinational pharmaceuticals company, but those efforts did not work out either.
Finally, they sent the sample to a government laboratory in Massachusetts, US and got a result.
Following this, the committee arranged a press conference to make the fact public.
It prompted the government to start working – banning the use of all paracetamol syrups and prosecuting the people at the four companies that were allegedly responsible.
However, the drug companies alleged that Prof Hanif had been trying to destroy the reputation of the pharmaceutical sector.
After 17 years, Prof Hanif brought to the fore the fact that Rid Pharma was selling adulterated paracetamol which caused the deaths of at least 28 children.
Case lingered
The government’s alleged indifference in pursuing justice against influential businesspersons and the intentional reluctance of the drug administration regulatory body caused the delay in trial.
The case remained stayed for 13 years since 1994 after the drug administration issued a circular saying that Bangladesh did not have proper test facilities. The plaintiff himself was responsible for this.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Abul Khayer, now a director of the drug administration, said yesterday: “I did not know about the judgement delivery date. I came to know the news from media. I am happy that the accused have been awarded the highest punishment.”