The Pakistani boson

Our minister makes a discovery too

Really, life in Pakistan has its compensations. We may not amount to much, we may be faint, but we’re definitely pursuing, always. Take the Higgs boson, for example:

“We have a discovery,” said Heuer, director general of CERN, speaking at a seminar recently in Geneva. “We have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson,” exactly where the Higgs was expected to be.

The long-sought “God particle” may explain why objects in our universe have mass and existence, and may unlock a gateway to some of the universe’s great mysteries.

Never one to be left behind and perhaps in a bid to unlock the mysteries of her own mass and existence, our federal minister for national regulations and services made a huge discovery of her own: she observed a particle consistent with a capsule she takes to treat a high blood pressure, exactly where the capsule was expected to be: in the pan. Unlike the discovery of the Higgs boson which involved hundreds of scientists, her discovery was of course made all by her lonesome, at least initially, since the particle (or capsule) she had ingested earlier was discovered when, as breezily phrased by a national daily, ‘it came out intact in her stool.’

Let me reassure a public ever on the hunt for the inappropriate that **it happens. Even the Queen faces this dilemma every day, or at least one hopes she does.

Adalat 30, normally bright pink as an innumerable clientele of the drug will attest, was in this case as a tactful lab report noted, ‘light brown and film coated.’

We have in charge of our national ministry for regulations and services a personage discerning and able enough to detect a small (now brown) capsule in the midst of impeccable camouflage, who noted, what’s more, the words ‘Adalat 30’ stamped on the side of the pill facing the viewer (we hope).

“Why,” she fumed, “has this medication re-appeared this way in its original packaging? I must get to the bottom of this (matter),” and she hoofed it to her hotline to contact the relevant persons.

Let me explain: the minister possesses a hotline to relevant persons in her capacity as the person in charge of a newly formed ministry, which has under its wing the Drug Regulatory Authority (the DRA). The DRA was established after the promulgation of an ordinance by Mr Zardari on February 16 to regulate the licensing, registration and manufacturing of drugs as per the Drugs Act 1976. So this, and much more than this, concerns for her own health, prompted the minister to raise Cain as well as the federal government analyst Dr Obaid Ali, plus the entire staff of the drug regulation department.

Sadly, what should have been a masterstroke of detection was discovered to be an error. The minister, a doctor herself, failed to recall (or did she not know?) that Adalat 30 is a timed release medication, and as timed release medications do, it was returned to its sender, apparently unopened.

To quote Wikipedia: ‘Time release technology, also known as sustained-release, sustained-action, extended-release, timed-release, modified release, or continuous-release, is a mechanism used in pills, tablets or capsules, to dissolve slowly and release a drug over time.

Today, most time-release drugs are formulated so that the active ingredient is embedded in a matrix of insoluble substance(s) such as acrylic, which means that the dissolving drug must find its way out through holes (in the matrix). Some drugs are enclosed in polymer-based tablets with a laser-drilled hole on one side and a porous membrane on the other side. Stomach acids push through this porous membrane, pushing the drug out through the laser-drilled hole. In time, the entire drug dose releases into the system while the polymer container remains intact, to be excreted later through normal digestion.’

Time release technology is nothing new. It has been on the market for more than a decade.

An aghast Dr Ali, speaking to the aforementioned national daily, said, “How could such a detail which was even mentioned on the tablet go undetected by the minister concerned, the chairman of quality control, the federal drug inspectors and the top tier of managers?” adding that, “the review and processing of the said complaint reveals the level of professional expertise and competence of officers who forwarded it to the laboratory.”

Dr Ali is now, like the Higgs Boson, exactly where we expect him to be: no longer the federal government analyst, since the news report meticulously refers to him as ‘the then federal government analyst’. Pity. I’d come to like the man.

You see, it never pays, in Pakistan, to point out a minister’s incompetence. In matters such as this, our ministers are never faint, and always pursuing.