The Lahore High Court on Wednesday extended a stay order on the sale and manufacture of Tyno cough syrup and adjourned further hearing of the case till January 21.
Justice Sheikh Najamul Hassan had imposed the ban on January 1 on a miscellaneous application moved by Judicial Activism Panel Chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique seeking a ban on the cough syrup, which has allegedly caused dozens of deaths in the province.
The Health Department failed to submit a reply to the application on Wednesday.
The petitioner stated that dozens of people had died in Gujranwala and Kamoke due to the syrup. He said that it was being investigated whether the people who had died had consumed too much of it, or whether there was a problem with the medicine itself. He said that even if the victims were drugs addicts, as has been claimed by the manufacturers, protection of their lives was a fundamental right under Article 9 of the Constitution.
He submitted that if the sale of the medicine was not stopped, it would lead to even more deaths.
He asked for a complete ban on the sale of the cough syrup and that physicians be restrained from prescribing the medicine. He also requested that a judicial inquiry be conducted into the deaths and cases be registered against those responsible.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2013.