More studies needed on pralidoxime, a drug used to treat pesticide poisoning

a team of two drugs is prescribed by who to combat organophosphorous pesticide poisoning. The most widely used class of pesticides, it causes about 200,000 deaths each year, globally. Now, one of the two drugs has come under the scanner because various studies have found it to be ineffective and harmful.

Of the two drugs, atropine takes care of the majority of the problems caused by organophosphate poisoning while pralidoxime restores the functioning of an enzyme of the nervous system that the pesticide affects (see box). Atropine is already in who