Piramal, Polycrol, Pesticides, and the Politics of Stomachs

Posted on 30th September, 2025 (GMT 11:40 hrs)

ABSTRACT

This letter critically examines Polycrol, an over-the-counter antacid by Piramal Pharma, as both a medical product and a metaphor for systemic socio-economic and political injustices in India. While marketed for short-term relief of digestive discomfort, Polycrol contains aluminium compounds whose chronic ingestion poses documented neurotoxic, skeletal, renal, and haematological risks, yet long-term clinical evidence of efficacy is absent. The correspondence situates the product within broader “pharma-political” dynamics, linking corporate profiteering, regulatory laxity, celebrity endorsements, and pesticide exposure to a cultural normalization of self-medication. Drawing parallels between the symptomatic relief of Polycrol and the quick-fix, extractive logic of crony capitalism—as exemplified in the DHFL financial scandal—the letter calls for regulatory transparency, public health accountability, and corporate ethical responsibility, arguing that systemic reform, rather than temporary palliatives, is essential to safeguard health, justice, and societal well-being.

Disclaimer:
The contents of this letter are intended for activistic, informational, educational, and advocacy purposes only. They reflect the critical observations and interpretations of the author based on publicly available sources and lived experiences. Nothing herein constitutes medical, legal, or professional advice. The author does not make any claims regarding the efficacy, safety, or quality of any product mentioned. Recipients are encouraged to consult qualified professionals or regulatory authorities before acting on the information provided.

Prologue

My stomach simmers. Each gulp of Polycrol is a temporary exorcism of the acid that gnaws, yet the relief is a mirage—fleeting, cosmetic, perfidious. I chase its chalky comfort like a moth to a flickering flame, only to find the fire has moved deeper, to bones, to neurons, to silent accumulation.

But this is not merely a stomachache. It is a historical ulcer. It is a political reflux. It is the taste of betrayal distilled into a suspension. I live in a country where pesticides rain down like unmarked bills, aluminium travels quietly from bottle to brain, and corporations applaud themselves while the populace swallows, unknowing, the bland theology of symptom suppression. Polycrol is the hero in a story where the villain is systemic indifference, and the victims are digested into silence.

And so I write. Not as a protestor in the street, but as a cartographer of corrosion. Not with weapons, but with words. My keyboard becomes the incantation, mapping the invisible architecture of harm. Polycrol is my metaphor: the quick-fix, the cosmetic, the commodified consolation, masking deeper, structural sickness. Each sip soothes the belly while etching the future into oblivion, just as crony capitalism soothes the present while devouring justice.

Yes, my stomach churns. But the greater ache is that of a nation chemically pacified, pharmaceutically (in-)disciplined, and politically anesthetized. Until the systemic toxins—social, chemical, economic—are addressed, I will continue to write, each letter a small rebellion against the quiet violence of convenience, each word a tablet I refuse to swallow.

To:

Mr. Ajay Piramal,

Chairman, Board of Directors & CEO,
Piramal Pharma Limited  

Subject: Polycrol, Pesticides, and the Politics of Stomachs

Dear Mr. Piramal,

I write to you not as a detached academic, but as a deranged survivor of financial vivisection — a DHFL victim forced to watch my savings dissolve under the careful “conscious” choreography of crony capitalism. If the State machinery prescribes silence, the market prescribes Polycrol — a soothing antacid suspension for all our burning guts.

Polycrol (your proud legacy product) is an apt metaphor for our condition: a “magical potion” that does not cure, does not prevent, but merely mops up the acidity of a poisoned stomach. In the same way, your conglomerate has built a reputation for reportedly/allegedly swallowing profits while the Indian people — burdened by pesticides, debts, and daily indigestion — must swallow Polycrol.

1. The Medical Farce

Medically, Polycrol appears to have some surface-level immediate utility: adsorbing a toxin here, easing a bloat there. Yet its reported side effects — constipation, nutrient malabsorption, drug interference, electrolyte imbalance — remind us that it is a band-aid masquerading as a cure. This mirrors the logic of quick-fix capitalism: Polycrol in, acidity out. Just as acidity is treated as a nuisance to be temporarily neutralized, so too does short-term capitalism treat nature, humans, and other-than-humans as disposable resources in a debt-fueled, consumerist economy.

What is rarely disclosed is the absence of rigorous, long-term clinical efficacy trials. While decades of marketing⤡ and rigorous advertising ⤡ ⤡ have established Polycrol as a household name in India, medical literature remains sparse on its sustained effectiveness in preventing or reducing morbidity from chronic digestive disorders. At best, isolated short-term studies show symptomatic relief; at worst, continuous use raises more questions than it answers. When a cricketer (Sourav Ganguly) or film star (Jisshu Sengupta) endorses an OTC product like Polycrol without disclaimers or appropriate disclosures, their ethical and legal accountability becomes highly questionable. Especially when the advertisement implies benefits that are not scientifically supported, the line between marketing and medical misrepresentation blurs, raising serious concerns about consumer protection and professional responsibility. 

Polycrol, an OTC antacid, is marketed in India without an Rx symbol and advertised freely, even though pharmacologists caution that excessive use can lead to electrolyte imbalances, gastrointestinal disturbances, and renal/kidney strain. This raises concerns about lax domestic regulation and the ethics of celebrity endorsements (are these celebrities licensed physicians???) without risk disclosure. By contrast, international regulators also classify such aluminium/magnesium/simethicone combinations as OTC products, but enforce stricter safeguards through mandated labeling, dosing limits, and interaction warnings.

And then comes the aluminium problem. Polycrol contains aluminium hydroxide and related silicates, which neutralize stomach acid in the short term. But medical literature warns that aluminium, when ingested repeatedly, accumulates silently in bones and brain tissue. Chronic exposure has been linked to osteoporosis, anaemia, and even neurodegenerative processes resembling Alzheimer’s disease. In patients with impaired kidneys — not uncommon in a pesticide-exposed population — aluminium toxicity can become fatal, manifesting as encephalopathy and bone destruction.

Component	Function in Polycrol (Liquid Suspension)	Documented / Potential Harmful Effects
Aluminium Hydroxide (Al(OH)₃)	Neutralizes stomach acid	Chronic ingestion can lead to aluminium accumulation in bones and brain; associated with neurodegeneration, osteoporosis, anaemia, and encephalopathy in patients with kidney impairment.
Magnesium Hydroxide (Mg(OH)₂)	Neutralizes acid, mild laxative effect	Can cause diarrhoea, electrolyte imbalance, and stress on kidneys if used excessively.
Other silicate/adsorbent compounds	Adsorb toxins, control viscosity	Potential interference with absorption of nutrients and medications; chronic exposure may reduce mineral bioavailability.
Flavouring / excipients	Improve taste, stabilize suspension	Rare hypersensitivity; may cause mild gastrointestinal discomfort in sensitive individuals.

Thus, the stomach is cooled while the brain is slowly destroyed. Polycrol soothes the belly today while etching tomorrow’s dementia into our neurons. A convenient metaphor, again, for how corporate quick-fixes defer pain in the present while amplifying destruction in the future.

But why would evidence matter, when advertising (and an alleged BJP-aligned stomach for profit) ensures that people will keep buying?

2. The Political Economy of Stomachs

Mr. Piramal, your empire’s stomach seems/appears to be capacious. It allegedly digests DHFL, swallowing the life savings of ordinary citizens. It reportedly digests pharma profits, built on quick fixes to chemically induced diseases. It digests regulatory silence, served with the generous seasoning of ruling-party benevolence. It also digests the toxic fallout of Digwal pollution⤡ ⤡, discharged from your facilities. Meanwhile, the public stomach burns.

Lawrence Summers once sneered: “Let them eat pollution.” In India, the phrase is less metaphor than prescription. We eat pesticide-laden food, choke on toxic air, and then rush for Polycrol to keep the stomach churning. Your business thrives not by curing disease but by normalizing the pharmaco-political ritual of symptom suppression.

3. The Philosophical Burden

Here lies the real derangement: Polycrol becomes one of the re-presentations of India’s philosophy of life. Swallow, suppress, repeat. Just as the crony oligarchical State says: absorb injustice, swallow corruption, digest the betrayal of your savings, and move on. If indigestion is the metaphor of our times, then Polycrol is its legitimizing theology.

But there is a deeper violence: the pharmaceuticalization of hunger itself. The very Green Revolution in India that promised abundance has produced chemical contamination of land and water, dietary distress, chronic disease, and a ‘pesticide generation’ born into constant toxic exposure. Rather than reforming food systems, we are told to self-medicate. Rather than confronting structural violence, we are told to drink chalky antacid while riding the ‘Cancer Train’—a nightly journey from Punjab’s Malwa region to Bikaner, where patients seek treatment for cancers linked to pesticide overuse.

Here too the absence of clinical proof is revealing: Polycrol has never been shown, in any robust double-blind peer-reviewed study, to counteract the long-term consequences of agrochemical ingestion. Instead, its very consumption becomes a cultural anaesthetic, dulling both physical pain, pharma’s profit and political will.

And this is where advertising, as previously mentioned, performs its sleight of hand: Polycrol is marketed as medicine, yet what is sold is not healing but metaphor — an illusion of relief, a promise that symptoms are manageable while aetiologies remain untouched. Advertising itself becomes a drug, numbing critical thought, manufacturing consent for dependency, and elevating a chalky suspension into a theology of everyday survival. But one must ask: is advertising medicines ethically defensible? Life-saving drugs are rarely marketed directly to consumers precisely because their misuse carries grave risks. Is it ethical to turn a palliative, unproven treatment into a branded, mass-marketed commodity? In India, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, explicitly prohibit misleading advertisements of drugs, particularly claims that exaggerate efficacy or promise cures. These statutes are designed to protect consumers from false assurances and prevent the commodification of relief without addressing underlying causes, highlighting the tension between commercial interests and public health ethics.  

And if the aluminium load in Polycrol keeps gnawing away at our neurons, perhaps that is not a bug but a feature — a quieter, less resistant population, chemically pacified from stomach to brain.

4. Legal and Ethical Demands

Therefore, this letter demands —

Regulatory Truthfulness: Label Polycrol honestly. State that it cannot and does not detoxify pesticide residues, that chronic use impairs nutrient absorption, that aluminium accumulation poses serious risks to brain and bone health, and that there is no conclusive long-term efficacy evidence.

Public Health Accountability: Stop normalizing mass self-medication as a substitute for food safety. FSSAI and the Ministry must monitor residues rigorously and publish accessible reports.

Corporate Responsibility: Acknowledge that profits from chronic disease are not holistic “healthcare” but extractive rent from suffering. Just as DHFL investors were reportedly fleeced under State complicity, so too are Indian consumers compelled to medicate the poisons your friends in agriculture and policy have normalized.

Philosophical Honesty: Admit that Polycrol is the mirror of your empire — a product that thrives on crisis, suppresses symptoms, and leaves the disease untouched.

5. A Personal Note

As a victim of DHFL fraud, I cannot help but feel that the same indifference that acidifies my finances acidifies my stomach. I am told to take Polycrol for one and faith in the State for the other. Neither cures the disease. Both only postpone collapse.

In conclusion: India does not need another antacid. It needs systemic reform — in agriculture, in finance, in governance. Until then, Mr. Piramal, your Polycrol will remain the perfect metaphor for our deranged condition: chalk dust in the mouth, profits in your pocket, silence in the stomach, and aluminium quietly destroying our bones and brains beneath the surface.

Hypothetically Yours,
Debeprasad (sic) Sadhan (patriarchal insertion?!) Bandopadhyay (sic)
(A deranged, financially-abused citizen, whose gut burns with more than acidity)

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Annex: Aluminium Toxicity and the Risks of Chronic Polycrol Use

1. Composition of Polycrol
Polycrol is marketed as an antacid containing aluminium hydroxide and magnesium hydroxide/silicate compounds. While somewhat effective in neutralizing gastric hydrochloric acid in the short-term, these aluminium-based compounds introduce significant toxicological concerns when consumed chronically.

2. Aluminium Absorption and Retention

• Aluminium is not an essential element for human physiology.
• Although only a small fraction (~0.1–0.3%) of ingested aluminium is absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, chronic exposure leads to cumulative retention in bone, liver, and brain.
• Renal excretion is the primary elimination pathway. Patients with impaired renal function — including large rural populations exposed to pesticide-related kidney injury — are at heightened risk of aluminium toxicity.

3. Documented Health Risks

• Neurotoxicity: Aluminium accumulation has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, through promotion of oxidative stress, β-amyloid aggregation, and neuronal apoptosis (Kawahara & Kato-Negishi, 2011, Int J Alzheimers Dis).
• Skeletal Effects: Chronic ingestion is associated with osteomalacia, impaired bone mineralization, and microfractures due to interference with calcium metabolism (WHO, 1997, Environmental Health Criteria 194: Aluminium).
• Haematological Effects: Long-term exposure can result in microcytic anaemia by interfering with iron absorption and erythropoiesis (ICMR Bulletin, 2004).
• Renal Burden: Patients with chronic kidney disease are particularly susceptible, where aluminium retention can cause encephalopathy and osteodystrophy (Kumar & Gill, 2014, Indian J Nephrol).

4. Lack of Long-Term Clinical Evidence
Despite its widespread marketing, no large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or longitudinal studies have established the safety or efficacy of aluminium-based antacids like Polycrol in chronic daily use. Available studies are limited to short-term symptomatic relief, often industry-sponsored, without adequate follow-up on systemic risks.

This lack of evidence is especially concerning in India, where Polycrol is often used not occasionally but as a daily supplement against pesticide-related gastrointestinal distress.

5. Regulatory Concerns

• The WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality (2010) recommend an upper limit of 0.2 mg/L for aluminium in water, citing risks of neurological and skeletal toxicity. Ingesting Polycrol regularly introduces aluminium doses several magnitudes higher.
• In 2018, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) set the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of aluminium at 1 mg/kg body weight. Regular antacid use can easily exceed this threshold.
• Indian regulatory bodies, including FSSAI and CDSCO, have not mandated long-term safety disclosures on aluminium in OTC antacids, despite repeated warnings from ICMR and WHO toxicology reviews.

6. Conclusion
Polycrol’s reliance on aluminium compounds positions it as a short-term palliative with long-term systemic risks. The absence of rigorous clinical evidence, combined with well-documented aluminium toxicity, makes its widespread consumption a public health hazard, particularly in already vulnerable populations exposed to pesticides and poor nutrition.

Key References

Kawahara, M., & Kato-Negishi, M. (2011). Link between aluminum and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease: The integration of the aluminum and amyloid cascade hypotheses. International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2011, Article ID 276393. https://doi.org/10.4061/2011/276393

World Health Organization (1997). Environmental health criteria 194: Aluminium. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc194.htm

Kumar, V., & Gill, K. D. (2009). Aluminium neurotoxicity: Neurobehavioural and oxidative aspects. Archives of Toxicology, 83(11), 965–978. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-009-0455-6

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Bulletin (2004). Aluminium toxicity and human health. https://www.icmr.gov.in/icmr-bulletin

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (2018). Scientific opinion on the re-evaluation of aluminium compounds. EFSA Journal, 16(7), Article 5372. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5372

Copy To:

• Shri A.H. Laddhad, Prothonotary and Senior Master, Bombay High Court (With reference to Case No. S/42/2025)
• Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW)
• Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI)
• Chairperson, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)
• Secretary, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
• Director General, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)
• Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare
• Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC)
• Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)
• National Green Tribunal (NGT)
• Chairperson, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
• Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
• Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA)
• President, All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN)
• Director, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
• President, Indian Medical Association (IMA)
• Secretary, Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS)
• Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)
• Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
• UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights
• Director, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
• Executive Director, Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)
• Chairperson, Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)
• Prasar Bharati (Chairman, CEO, Member-Finance)  

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