Pills 'debacle' but NZ left in dark

By GREG ANSLEY and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Health authorities are being hampered in their investigations into recalled Australian vitamin supplements by New Zealand's open licensing regime.

The Australian Government was yesterday planning a new crackdown on pharmaceutical manufacturers as panicked consumers flooded chemists and health stores following the recall of more than 200 vitamin and mineral supplements.

The recall, Australia's biggest, also shut down Pan Pharmaceuticals, which holds about 70 per cent of the booming market in herbal remedies, vitamins and painkillers.

The company is alleged to have fabricated and manipulated quality control data.

Some of its supplements are said to have caused hallucinations.

Last year Pan Pharmaceuticals earned almost 12 per cent of its worldwide sales of A$110 million from New Zealand.

But unlike Australia, dietary supplements and complementary medicines do not have to be registered.

"We have no idea what the range is that has come in [to the country]," said Carole Inkster, the Food Safety Authority's policy and regulatory standards director.

The authority had asked Pan Pharmaceuticals if it had a New Zealand agent, and which of its products were on the market here, she said.

A response was expected today.

Ms Inkster said there had been no reports of adverse reactions to the products but there was a potential risk for New Zealand consumers, given the serious manner in which Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration was treating the matter.

The Food Safety Authority has recommended anyone who is concerned to stop taking Pan supplements and has referred them to the administration website for the names of the 219 recalled products.

The authority was now waiting for a list of the next raft of products - believed to be hundreds - which Pan Pharmaceuticals had manufactured for other countries, said Ms Inkster. "It is just huge."

The Ministry of Health's Medsafe was investigating three over-the-counter medicines from the company.

Leading New Zealand natural health product firms Healtheries and Blackmores have been quick to dissociate themselves from the Australian pharmaceutical manufacturer.

Blackmores' country manager, Alison Quesnel, last night called on the Ministry of Health to quickly identify the recalled goods available here so that reputable companies were not tarred with the Pan Pharmaceuticals brush.

The president of the National Nutritional Foods Association, Bill Bracks, described the situation as a debacle and said his members were in "absolute shock".

Around the country, they were going through their stocks. But Pan products "could be anywhere".

"We are just as concerned about this as the regulators are. It doesn't do anybody any good."

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has revoked Pan's licence to manufacture medicines for six months. Retailers were yesterday stripping shelves of its products and fielding thousands of inquiries from consumers.

The administration shut the company and ordered the recall of products ranging from vitamins and brewer's yeast to herbal remedies and supplements, Japanese green tea and weight-gain tablets.

The investigations were sparked by 87 adverse reactions to a travel sickness pill, Travacalm, which put 19 people in hospital and which is now the subject of action by the family of a 10-year-old girl stricken by the drug.

The administration immediately stopped production of Travacalm and similar products after it found the content of one of the active ingredients varied by up to 700 per cent.

Raw materials had been replaced in some instances by substitutes and in five cases last month, the company had marketed products without finishing tests on key ingredients.

Therapeutic Goods Administration Australia