Ajay Piramal's Pharma Empire: Saridon, Polycrol and Tetmosol by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: These petition-letters address the intersecting ethical, medical, financial, and regulatory failures embodied in the Piramal Pharma’s practices, weaving together the cases of Tetmosol, Polycrol, and Saridon as both concrete products and metaphors of systemic exploitation. It highlights how Tetmosol (Monosulfiram)—an obsolete, unapproved dermatological product absent from global pharmacopoeia yet still marketed in India and exported to vulnerable populations in the Global South—mirrors the structural injustice of the DHFL resolution that allegedly stripped ordinary depositors of their savings: a superficial balm masking deeper wounds, profit extracted from public vulnerability, and corporate narratives of “conscious capitalism” greenwashing exploitation. Polycrol, marketed as an over-the-counter antacid, offers only temporary relief while containing aluminium compounds associated with neurotoxic, skeletal, renal, and haematological risks, with no robust long-term efficacy evidence, thereby exemplifying the quick-fix, extractive logic of crony capitalism that normalizes self-medication, manipulates regulatory loopholes, and thrives on celebrity endorsements amidst widespread pesticide exposure. Saridon, despite its global ban, continues to be advertised in India as a “triple action” cure, its composition of Paracetamol, Propyphenazone, and Caffeine symbolically exposing how legality cloaks long-term harm, judicial indulgence entrenches asymmetry, and profit-driven stimulation deepens precarity—echoing the DHFL crisis where commerce, law, and politics collude to perpetuate inequity. By situating these pharmaceutical products within a broader “pharma-political” nexus of regulatory laxity, corporate profiteering, and judicial complicity, the letter invokes the concepts of iatrogenic harm and “medical nemesis” to argue that both medical and financial mis-selling constitute analogous public harms requiring urgent redress. It therefore calls for regulatory review by CDSCO, WHO, and international agencies; withdrawal of unsafe and outdated drugs from the Indian market; alignment of pharmaceutical and financial practices with global safety norms; establishment of an independent redressal mechanism for DHFL victims; and the recognition that systemic reform, not symptomatic relief, is essential to safeguard public health, justice, and societal well-being.
