TN drug inspectors had failed to detect toxic cough syrup production for 14 years

CHENNAI: For 14 years, Sresan Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of toxic Coldrif cough syrup that has been blamed for the deaths of 17 children in Madhya Pradesh, operated unchecked from a dingy building in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu , even as drugs were manufactured in patently unhygienic conditions with no proper facilities and zero adherence to rules. It took the fatalities in MP’s Chhindwara district for the TN drug authorities to finally wake up and inspect the manufacturing unit, which held a licence since 2011, and subsequently seal the premises. The inspection, carried out a day after receiving a letter from MP’s drug controller, confirmed 364 critical and major violations at every stage — right from sourcing raw materials to drug making, testing and packing. On Oct 3, TN’s de