Thermometers must mean accuracy

Pushpa Girimaji

My five-year-old son was unwell and when I checked his temperature with a mercury thermometer that I had at home, I was shocked to see a reading of 104 degree Fahrenheit. As his body was not so hot, I decided to check the temperature once again and noticed that the mercury level was not going down. It was stuck at 104. As that was an old thermometer, I got a new one and, to my shock, this one did not budge from 97.5. It bore ISI mark and said it was made in China. Finally, I had to arrange a third one. Fortunately, this worked and showed that his fever was 101.5.

The accuracy and quality of all mercury-in-glass thermometers sold in the country are guaranteed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body. As per the Clinical Thermometer (Quality Control) order, 2001, no clinical mercury thermometer can be sold in the country without the Indian Standards Institution (ISI) certification mark given by BIS. In addition, the accuracy of these thermometers are also governed by the Legal Metrology (General) Rules.

You can complain about the poor quality thermometer to both the state legal metrology department as well as the BIS. If the ISI mark is fake, the BIS will take action against the manufacturer and the retailer has to refund the cost of the thermometer to you. If it is a genuine mark, it has to take responsibility and get you a refund or a replacement and also tell you why a product with its seal of guarantee failed. 

It will also have to investigate whether the entire batch is defective and, if so, have it removed from shop shelves. It will also have to take action against the manufacturer for his failure to manufacture the thermometer in accordance with the BIS specifications. In fact, you must demand that the BIS give you a detailed report on the action taken on your complaint.

Having said that, I must tell you that today, many countries have banned mercury thermometers or are phasing them out because of the adverse effects of mercury on human health and environment. In India too, this is being phased out and most hospitals do not use them. So, it is better to go in for a digital thermometer. However, contact the local Pollution Control Board for disposal of the mercury thermometer.

How do I choose the right thermometer?

Today you get digital thermometers (that use electronic heat sensors to record body temperature), infrared contact and non-contact thermometers (that use infrared rays to measure the temperature) and temperature gauging fever strips, with prices ranging from Rs 70 to Rs 11,000. However, in the absence of a third-party guarantee and strict enforcement of the Legal Metrology Rules, one can never be sure of the accuracy of the thermometers.

That’s the unfortunate part. The government should have paved the way for smooth transition from mercury to digital thermometers by bringing the latter under compulsory BIS certification soon after the standards for these thermometers were formulated by the BIS in 2002. But this was never done, even though mercury thermometers were brought under mandatory ISI certification way back in 2001. The Legal Metrology (General) Rules, 2011, incorporated detailed quality parameters for digital thermometers, but this is hardly enforced by the states.

However, the good news is that the government has finally decided to bring all electrical thermometers under mandatory ISI certification through a quality control order. One hopes that the draft notification issued by the department of pharmaceuticals, Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, gets notified quickly and enforced rigorously, so that consumers are assured of the accuracy of these thermometers.