Harmful chemicals released in water by Pharma companies at Patencheru Andhra Pradesh
According to reports powerful antibiotic was being thrown into stream of water each day and the amount is enough to treat every person in a city of 90,000.
- The water which is supposed to be clean (as per environment norms) was a floating soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments.
- This is the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment (well we have achieved highest level at least in something)
- The poor people in the vicinity are unknowingly consuming the chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria
These factories, located at Patancheru on NH-9, just 28km from Hyderabad, produce drugs for much of the world. Patancheru became a hub for largely unregulated chemical and drug factories in the 1980s, creating what is described locally as an “ecological sacrifice zone” with its pharmaceutical waste. Since then, India has become one of the world’s leading exporters of pharmaceuticals, and the US which spent $1.4 billion on Indian-made drugs in 2007, is its largest customer.
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