India, June 29 -- By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

The recent announcement by an international drug testing laboratory that many anti-cancer drugs of Indian origin have failed to clear quality tests by alarmingly wide margins, should come as an eye-opener to our authorities vested with the very crucial responsibility of the enforcement of drug quality control standards.

The report says that many of the tested drugs, which qualified to be called life-savers, contained either far too less or far too much active ingredients, than what they should have, thus jeopardising the lives of patients treated with them. Needless to say, while the former situation can fail to effect a cure and kill the patients, for want of sufficient drug, the latter can...