Threat and Bribe to prescribe trash??

As a clinical nutritionist I meet with a lot of medical representatives at my clinic after I am done with consultation. I do not prescribe medicines as I am not a doctor but I prescribe vitamins, health drinks (complan, ensure, pediasure) and other supplements for health and nutrition. A couple of days ago manufacturers from the US (2 men and a lady) walked into my clinic, 2 of them were from the US and one of them was Indian, from the minute they walked in they kept talking about their political connections in India after which they started talking to me about their multivitamin and fat burner which could bring about dramatic improvements in overall health. When I told them that I do not prescribe anything that does not have scientific validity they said they are working on the approvals. When I went through the ingredients I was shocked. The tablet contained an overdose of vitamins which could lead to hypervitaminosis, which is a condition of abnormally high levels of vitamins. The patient could have nausea, blurred vision, liver enlargement and they may not even realize it is because of the multivitamin as people think nothing could go wrong with just a multivitamin pill, their fat burner also had a lot of harmful ingredients. When I said I cannot prescribe the tablet they tried to bribe me. I was very upset and told them that patients come to us with a lot of faith and it is inhuman to kill that faith, I do not care about money. After that the man said “since when did therapists in India get so concerned about scientific validity?, I will take my product to other celebrity nutritionists in Mumbai and they will be willing to prescribe it “I was very angry and told them to get out of the clinic, it was late in the evening and my receptionist and I were the only two women around, they started threatening us saying “you Indians do not know how to treat foreigners, I am very well connected with politicians in India, how can you be disrespectful to foreigners? You people are unethical…“I told him that no one can bribe or threaten me to prescribe a medicine that is not safe, money will never be important to me. I was shocked that they had the courage to come to our country to market their product and criticize Indians and Indian doctors. What would happen to all their major cosmetic products without the Indian market??Being Indian has a special status of honor and dignity. Indian doctors are among the most respected in the world and medical breakthrough in India is helping tons of patients across the world. As a nutritionist and citizen of the country I believe we should work hard towards the idea of a nation were good health is priority. I would like to request all doctors and therapists to go through every single ingredient of medicines including multivitamins and sports drinks before they prescribe it, nothing in the world is more important than human health….it’s important for us to do everything possible to prevent medicines without approvals to come into our country.

Divya Sathyaraj