Indian drug companies try to gut antibiotic pollution controls

India’s powerful pharmaceutical industry is attempting to weaken a ground-breaking law proposed to tackle pollution linked to the production of antibiotics, leaked documents obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal.

Most of the world’s antibiotics are made in factories in India and China. Over the past decade, numerous studies have shown that these facilities leak waste containing antibiotic residue and drug-resistant bacteria into the environment. This pollution, experts warn, fuels the spread of so-called superbugs, micro-organisms that are resistant to antibiotics.

In January this year the Indian government published a draft bill to introduce its first limits on the concentration of antibiotics that can be discharged into rivers and the surrounding environment. The bill came after several investigations by the Bureau and Changing Markets and campaigning by the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi and the Stockholm International Water Institute.