With great fanfare the government has announced a new law prescribing greater punishment for those who make spurious drugs and for scientists conducting unsafe and unethical clinical practise. Strangely there is no attempt at punishing widespread abuse by pharmaceutical companies. India has thousands of companies making and selling drugs and new ones are being set up everyday marketing medicines of dubious quality. However the big companies are a much bigger problem. Every company markets commonly used drugs under a different name but not one is interested in very useful old drugs because of low margins. I find three things particularly dangerous. First is the practice of pushing drugs for conditions for which they are not indicated such as ondansetron for any vomiting when it is only for vomiting after chemotherapy. The second is combining two different antibiotics used for completely different infections in one tablet. For instance cefixime used in typhoid with cloxacillin used mainly for skin abscesses. Third is marketing completely different molecules under the same name for instance ceftriaxone which is injectable and cefixime which is a tablet to use the brand value and confuse the doctor. The marketing is targeted mainly towards illiterate doctors such as quacks and those who obtained their degrees with money who constitute 80% of all doctors. Who knows how many people are being killed everyday because of criminal pursuit of profits by the pharma companies but no doubt they cover their backsides by oiling the politicians and kleptocrats. After all it is all for the aam aadmi.