In November 2014, 15 women died after undergoing mishandled sterilization operations performed in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
[4] On November 8, 2014, Dr. R. K. Gupta and an unnamed assistant carried out tubectomies on around 140 women in two different camps[5] in Pendari, Bilaspur district.
[7] According to Amar Singh, the deputy health director of Chhattisgarh, the women appeared to have died from either blood poisoning or hemorrhagic shock.
[12] On November 15, two senior Chhattisgarh officials stated that tablets of ciprocin that had been linked to the deaths contained zinc phosphide, a chemical often used in rat poison.
[13] The company responded to this finding by releasing a statement which said that information about the incident had been exaggerated, denying that the pills they produced were contaminated.
[9] Unnamed local health officials denied any responsibility for the deaths, with some suggesting added pressure from the government to perform many operations in a short space of time.
Chhattisgarh Health Minister Amar Agarwal said that the government has banned six unnamed medicines for such operations pending the investigation.