Highlights:
- Heave and push for WHO Pandemic Treaty: Audit & Accountability should come first
- Tightened Pharmacy Rules: The Cough Syrup Amendment: Barking up the wrong tree
- Sunscreen Use Linked to Higher Risk of Multiple Skin Cancers
Website: https://uho.org.in
By Dr. Amitav Banerjee, Chairperson of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO)
Heave and push for WHO Pandemic Treaty: Audit & Accountability should come first.
World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, alongside Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, issued an urgent joint appeal to international heads of state.
Their message was singular: finalize the International Pandemic Agreement immediately. Stemming from painful administrative lessons learned during historical respiratory pandemics, the treaty seeks to legally codify international data sharing, guarantee equitable vaccine manufacturing distribution pathways, and prevent wealthy nations from hoarding therapeutic materials during public health emergencies of international concern.
The UHO has strong reservations on the WHO Pandemic Treaty. We need audit and accountability for the ham handed and draconian measures recommended by the WHO in the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused more collateral harms than benefits, before handing over the autocratic powers to the WHO as envisaged in the proposed Pandemic Treaty and the amendments to the International Health Regulations.
Audit and accountability for past deeds is required now and also for future before signing any Treaty, decentralization, open debates at all levels including people at large and its weight on decision making should be enacted by way of legal measures and those conditions should be part of The Treaty also.
Every time the origin of the virus is emphasised, the fact is sidelined that the source was not important, the harsh harmful measures taken for a routine mild virus was the source of all miseries. Whatever the orgins, the fear mongering was kept at its peak. Even if it was a lab leaked virus, was it deadly, were the measures taken scientific? Even if it was zoonotic, was the scientific approach taken? These are some uncomfortable questions.
The WHO is an unelected and unaccountable body which is heavily under the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and the Gates Foundation and cannot be trusted with the dictatorial powers envisaged in the amendments to the International Health Regulations under the garb of Public Health. The amendments has provisions for declaration of a pandemic or even an impending pandemic on the whims and fancy of the WHO, enforce trade and travel restrictions, vaccine mandates, surveillance and quarantine and other measures which were carried out in the past pandemic by shock and awe strategy. It wants to legitimize these measures by way of this treaty.
The USA, which has left the WHO, is holding senate hearings on the mismanagement during the Covid-19 pandemic, including the vaccine injuries. Before pushing the Pandemic Treaty we feel the WHO should also carry out similar hearings and also come clear on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which it tried to cover up.
While not downplaying the serious nature of both Hantavirus and the Ebola Virus, which are local health emergencies without any pandemic potential, we feel that the recent overreactions may be strategies to shock and awe countries and citizens to accept the draconian WHO Pandemic Treaty and the amendments to the International Health Regulations.
Tightened Pharmacy Rules: The Cough Syrup Amendment: Barking up the wrong tree
In a significant regulatory shift on June 16, 2026, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare officially amended the Drugs Rules, 1945, specifically targeting the distribution networks of liquid pediatric and adult cough formulations.
Historically, Entry 13 of Schedule K offered a wide regulatory loophole: it exempted small, remote rural settlements with a population under 1,000 individuals from standard retail drug licensing requirements. This allowed general merchants to sell basic cough mixtures over the counter. Following global concerns over contaminated diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol batches in recent years, the government has officially excised the word “Syrup” from this entry.
As a result, cough syrups are no longer exempt under any conditions. All sales, even in the smallest hamlets, must flow through a fully licensed pharmacy complying directly with the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. This ensures a clear chain of custody, standard pharmacist verification, and traceable batch records.
We feel this is barking up the wrong tree. This will not check the substandard cough syrups or drugs coming to the market. By changing the classification of cough syrups from Schedule K drugs will not ensure their quality. According to an editorial in The Times of India, the problem is not how these medicines are sold but what is being sold.
According to this editorial, India keeps experiencing fatal DEG (a regulated chemical used in cough syrups) poisoning outbreaks from contaminated cough syrups – the deaths of at least 22 children in Chhindwara, MP, last Oct being the latest case. Contaminated cough syrups are neither a new, nor a surprising, problem. DEG poisoning has recurred in India since 1972, with similar mass poisonings in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Indian-made cough syrups caused mass child deaths in Gambia, Cameroon and Uzbekistan.
The diagnosis is long established – systemic failure. 1. Manufacturing units operate in unregulated conditions. 2. There’s chronic understaffing and inconsistent inspections, plus there’s corruption. 3. Licences that are cancelled, are quietly reversed once public attention fades. 4. Doctors and pharmacists profit via family-owned pharmacies that skirt conflict-of-interest rules. 5. There’s no system for doctors to flag clusters of poisoning symptoms. 6. There is no effective drug recall mechanism. So, contaminated batches remain in circulation, and cause deaths again. 7. Despite rules that mandate every batch of raw material and final product be tested, and records maintained, there is no documentation of a chain-of-custody of inputs. Poor regulation caters to the resistance to transparency and accountability. It is worth recalling the US example again – tightening drug law in 1937, and strict regulatory enforcement eliminated DEG deaths.
In India, after every mass poisoning, authorities slip into an all-too-familiar cycle of denial, temporary crackdowns, and band-aid. The solution isn’t what has been prescribed – doctors’ prescriptions, which can also be procured falsely, a separate scam. Lastly, how does govt plan to enforce prescription-only sales? Not only has India failed to ensure only-prescription sales of antibiotics, it has also failed to control antibiotic overprescription. There is no reason to expect that the cough syrups’ trajectory will be any different.
We concur with the views expressed in the editorial.
Sunscreen Use Linked to Higher Risk of Multiple Skin Cancers
A 470,000+ person study found sunscreen users faced dramatically higher risk of melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma — even after accounting for major skin cancer risk factors.
Individuals who reported using sunscreen more frequently had substantially higher risk of multiple skin cancers — even after researchers accounted for major confounding factors like age, sex, skin type, tanning ability, sunburn history, sunlamp use, and time spent outdoors.
The findings are worrisome:
• MELANOMA: +292% higher risk (RR = 3.92)
• BASAL CELL CARCINOMA: +140% higher risk (RR = 2.40)
• SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA: +126% higher risk (RR = 2.26)
The researchers categorized sun protection habits from “never/rarely” to “always” and found the strongest associations among the most frequent sunscreen users.
In other words: the more sunscreen use reported, the higher the observed skin cancer risk.
Many chemical sunscreens contain compounds like oxybenzone, octocrylene, and homosalate which are hormone disruptors. Some formulations have also been found contaminated with benzene, a known human carcinogen.
Sunlight is how the human body produces vitamin D, a hormone precursor involved in immune regulation, cellular repair, inflammation control, and cancer defense. People who never receive sunlight exposure with sunscreen are likely to become vitamin D deficient. UHO recommends our regulatory bodies should reexamine the safety of sunscreens.
The weekly newsletters bring the updates on the science, battered and bruised during the pandemic, legal updates and impact of activism for a just society, across the world. These are small steps to promote Transparency, Empowerment and Accountability – the ethos of the UHO.
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