CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Jail for Indonesian drug manufacturers over cough syrup linked to 200 child deaths

Sarah Newey
Thu, 2 November 2023 

Riski Agri holds the bottle of cough syrup that hospitalised his five-year-old son Farrazka in Jakarta. The boy survived but was left with kidney damage

Four senior officials of a company that produced a cough syrup linked to the deaths of more than 200 children have been sentenced to jail in Indonesia.

The chief executive and three other senior employees of Afi Farma – which manufactured medicines containing excess quantities of a toxic substance – were given two-year prison sentences on Wednesday, and fined one billion Indonesian rupiah (£52,000).

Their products were linked to the deaths of more than 200 otherwise healthy children in Indonesia, who died from acute kidney injury after consuming ethylene glycol.

Since 2022, about 100 fatalities linked to other counterfeit medicines – mainly produced in India – have also been reported in Gambia and Uzbekistan, in what has become the biggest tainted medicine scandal since contaminated cough syrup killed 365 people in Panama in 2006.

In Indonesia, prosecutors in East Java found the four defendants guilty of producing pharmaceutical products that did not meet safety standards.

The ruling referred to events between October 2021 and February 2022, when Ali Farma received two batches of propylene glycol, which is used to make cough syrup.

But despite having the means to do so, the company “consciously” did not test the ingredients – which turned out to contain 96 to 99 per cent ethylene glycol, the prosecutor said.

Both substances can be used as additives to solvents, but while propylene glycol is non-toxic and widely included in medicines, cosmetics and food, ethylene glycol is an industrial solvent used in paint, pens and brake fluid – and very dangerous if ingested in high quantities.

The World Health Organization says the safe limit is no more than 0.10 per cent.

According to prosecutors, Ali Farma relied on quality and safety certificates from its supplier, instead of independently testing them.

The company’s lawyers denied negligence and told the BBC that rigorous testing of ingredients is not a requirement in Indonesia, adding that the firm is considering an appeal.

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