FIR against Amazon for selling abortion drug

Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), Maharashtra has registered an FIR against the e-commerce website Amazon for the online sale of abortion drugs (MTP kit).

The FDA found that abortion drugs were being sold online on behalf of the company. The website was not even asking for any kind of prescription for its sale.

In order to verify this, the demand for an MTP kit without a prescription was registered on online sales portals. It was found that the abortion medicine under the brand name A-Kare was available on the online portal amazon.in.

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The demand for the MTP kit drug was accepted by amazon.in without the requisite prescription of a registered medical practitioner.

The MTP Kit by the brand name of 'A kare' Tablet was received, however, the sale bill of the drug was not received along with the courier parcel. The administration inquired about the sale of the above MTP drug to Amazon, and it was informed that the drug was supplied from Odisha.

However, further investigation revealed that the drug was not supplied by the seller in Odisha but the seller ID was registered by another person on Amazon's online portal using the documents of said drug store.

The MTP kit is a 'Schedule H' drug under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940. And it is mandatory to sell it only on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner. Also, according to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 2002 and Rules, 2003, it is mandatory to use this medicine at a health facility and under the supervision of a service provider.

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