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After hearing
more about a company, which until a few hours ago I never knew
existed, I took my bottle of vitamins, sat at the computer and
searched for information on the recalled products.
Although I could find some information through the TGA website,
varying news reports (my initial scepticism now thrown aside)
informed me the lists released on the first day were not extensive
and more products were to be added.
This surprised me as I assumed it would be simple to identify
which products were affected and pass this information on to the
vitamin-crunching public.
Instead, there appeared to be confusion in pharmacies across the
country as to which products needed to be taken off the shelf.
Why was it so difficult to identify the recalled products?
As a consumer, I want to know vital information and be content
in the knowledge the pills I have been trustingly ingesting for
the past several years are not now being recalled.
I finally discovered the brand I had been taking - Pluravit multivitamins
for women - was not part of the recall.
Bayer is identified on the label although I still went in search
of confirmation just to be sure.
Why was the manufacturer not revealed on the labels of other products?
Surely this was important information, particularly as a preventative
measure in a situation where products need to be identified and
recalled.
Although Travacalm
was the product to induce the recall, not the vitamins, which
are claiming so much attention, I still wondered about the safety
of the manufacturing.
If Pan could mess with one medicine, what else could they be doing
with their other products?
How long had they been operating unsafely and unchecked?
The people buying products made by Pan were not purchasing suspicious
looking pills in a dark alleyway or on the black market, nor were
these products manufactured in a backyard laboratory.
These were made, distributed and sold with the guarantee of product
quality printed on the box.
This put a chill up my spine.
How many other companies are operating with unsafe practices and
placing people's health at risk? How safe were my own multivitamins,
recommended to me many years ago by a doctor?
Who was coming first - the company or its consumers?
Like most people, I do not know much about what goes into the
tablets I take.
I simply trust an expert to know and to tell me what to take and
when I need to.
Numerous Australians (and New Zealanders) place their faith in
the products manufactured by Pan.
How can an industry be trusted when a major company is found to
be negligent in its practices? However, this is not the only issue.
Why was there such confusion in the industry about which products
Pan made?
Perhaps there is an answer from people within the industry, but
to someone like me, it made me feel uneasy and wary of something
I once unquestioningly consumed.
The idea a manufacturing company's products are unsafe as well
as seeing the confusion and the uncertainty of the resulting recall
has shaken my faith in taking off the shelf vitamins and medicines.
Editor's
Note: We thank Joanne for her lucid comments. She has raised
some very valid points, and one that comes to mind is that if
all Australian pharmacy products were bar-coded with a universal
product code with the ability to track a product along the entire
supply process, would the product recall have been so messy?
The industry has much to answer for, because this type of bar-coding
has been around for some time, but the various players have been
unable to make up their minds as to whether they will or won't.
Will it cost or will it pay?
I think we already know the answer.
Meanwhile it appears that the consequence of the Pan debacle is
that consumer confidence has been massively shaken in the Pharmaceutical
Industry.
Community pharmacy is the visible face of that industry.
We all have a stake in the final outcome, so let us ensure that
it is handled properly.
This is also a market opportunity for the PGA to enter into a
public relations campaign to inform consumers, on behalf of their
members, what is being done to protect their interests.
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