PALAMPUR: The Palampur Welfare and Environment Protection Forum a voluntary social organization has demanded complete ban on the sale of oxytocin drug in the state which has not only caused huge loss to the animal wealth of the state but had also reduced the population of vultures.
Mr. Ravinder Sood, President of the forum said that blatant and indiscriminate use of a drug oxytocin had become a big environmental and health hazard among human beings and animals. Oxytocin is synthetic hormone normally used on women during the labour hours to ease the relaxation of muscles. But today this hormone is widely used on milch cattle in this district to extract more milk.
Mrs. Neelam Sood, who headed this study on behalf of PWEPF, stated that administration of this injection reportedly minimizes the resistance of animal to release milk. Though it is a banned drug and can only be sold on the prescriptions of registered medical or veterinary practitioners but there is no check on the sale of this drug and it is being sold openly without any prescription.
Mrs. Sood who talked to many veterinary and medical professionals on this subject, it was disclosed that milk extracted through oxytocin is very harmful. The use of milk extracted through this synthetic hormone had resulted in horrible consequences like early maturation incidents in girls, miscarriages in women and also caused birth defects and deformities in infants.
The study further revealed that the administration of oxytocin had also resulted in infertility in the milch cattle , one can see hundreds of stray animals on roads, owners of these animals have left them as these have failed to conceive again. These herds of the stray cows sitting on the roadside, streets and markets have become traffic hazards resulting in serious accidents daily. Forum has cautioned the cattle breeders to refrain from the indiscriminate use of oxytocin on the innocent livestock for their selfish motives.
It was also learnt that those animals are administered this drug for longer period die prematurely. “Members of the forum†during their visit to over fifty villages in the region found several carcasses of animals emitting foul smell but no vultures were seen anywhere. Villagers told that population of vultures have reduced in past few years. They also told that number of vultures were also seen dying after eating the dead animals in the area, particularly in those cases where the oxytocin was administered.
A senior journalist from Palampur.
It is a sad commentary that cows are being subject to this drug, and then people are consuming the ‘tainted’ milk…reminds me of the “urea milk” scam unearthed in Haryana/UP/Delhi a few years ago. How about the government / private sector look at the Anand model and involve small farmers in a cooperative with a large milk processing plant, so that people get the milk they want and the cows are not mistreated…how long will it take for India to address basic nutirtion and health concerns for its people…
Jess
Calgary
its too late now…but still we can do smthing before it get to impossible mark