Iron pills — 35 UP schoolgirls ill after consuming pills

Thirty-five girls at an Uttar Pradesh college fell ill Monday after they were administered iron pills following lunch, officials said. The incident took place at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya i

By: Nirmalya Dutta | | Updated: August 12, 2014 10:47 am

Thirty-five girls at an Uttar Pradesh college fell ill Monday after they were administered iron pills following lunch, officials said. The incident took place at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Shahjahanpur, about 200km from here. The girls, after being administered iron pills, aimed at improving blood content in the body, complained of giddiness and sickness.

They were immediately rushed to the community health centre. When their condition deteriorated, they were referred to the district hospital, where more than two dozen of them are still serious. Senior officials have rushed to the hospital. Doctors are investigating to find if the sickness was due to ‘routine reaction’ of the iron pills or whether the medicines had expired or were of poor quality, an official told .

On July 17, the Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation Programme was launched with great fanfare – full-page newspaper ads and the works that any government scheme has. However, soon afterwards children taking the supplements started falling ill. While there might be no conspiracy here and it could simply be a case of a few stray tainted tablets or high dosages – there’s one organisation that believes that the programme has serious limitations in the scientific context. The Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation, an NGO dedicated to eradicating fluorosis – a disease caused by consumption of fluoride believes that scientific rationale is absent in this current government programme. Prof (Dr) AK Susheela, a former AIIMS anatomy professor and the director of the foundation calls the programme ‘old wine in a new bottle’. We talked to her to gauge the situation and why she thinks this ambitious government plan is unlikely to produce the desired results:

Why is the foundation against the Iron and Folic Acid supplementation programme?

Dr Susheela: We are not against iron supplementation in general and it is very much required for pregnant women but the fact is that similar programs have been tried for over 40 years and haven’t produced desired results. Women continue to be anaemic and there’s no sign of maternal and infant mortality reducing and even those taking tablets continued to be anaemic. The doctors (technical advisers) to the health ministry claimed that the women weren’t taking tablets but this was just a face-saving strategy and they’re doing more harm than good. One of the major reasons for continued anaemia is the continued consumption of fluoride through water and food. The chemical fluoride not only decreases production of red blood cells by the bone marrow but also destroys microvilli – the microscopic protrusions lining the intestine – resulting in poor absorption of nutrients critical for the biosynthesis of haemoglobin. Read more about this ill-conceived program

With inputs from IANS

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Published : March 11, 2014 11:40 am | Updated:August 12, 2014 10:47 am

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