Drugs withdrawal confusing

Drugs withdrawal confusing

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's recall of 100 nutritional supplements
produced by Pan Pharmaceuticals of Australia has caused confusion
among vendors and consumers because of a lack of information on
the decision.

An employee at the Sumberwaras drugstore in Tebet, South
Jakarta, Linda, said she was confused by the government's order
to pull the products from the shelves.

"We still have six nutritional supplements produced by a
number of Australian companies, including Pan. I don't know
whether only the Pan products will be recalled or all of them,"
she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

One woman said she sometimes purchased imported herbal and
vitamin pills.

"They are not Pan Pharmaceuticals products, but are
manufactured by an Australian-based company. I don't know whether
they are still safe to use because there is no information about
the products.

"For now I've decided to stop using supplements, imported or
not," she said while making a purchase at another drugstore in
Tebet.

The Food and Drug Monitoring Body (BPOM) ordered the recall
after Australian authorities suspended Pan's license over
allegations the company used raw materials that had not been
tested for safety and that it had manipulated laboratory results.

Many users of Pan's products have reportedly become ill, in
many cases seriously, suffering from hallucinations and suicidal
thoughts.

Canberra ordered Pan, the country's largest nonprescription
drug company, to halt operations for six months and recalled 668
of its products, many of which are exported to dozens of
countries.

Marius Widjajarto of the Indonesian Health Consumers
Empowerment Foundation urged BPOM to provide more information to
put an end to the confusion among vendors and consumers.

"It was a lie when BPOM chairman Sampurno said that none of
the recalled products could be purchased over-the-counter
anymore, because many of the distributors registered with his
office are fictitious. So how can he say all of the products were
recalled within a day?" he said.

Meanwhile, Ida Marlinda of the food supplement division at the
Indonesian Consumers Foundation advised people that according to
the consumer protection law they were entitled to return the
recalled products, along with a receipt, to the store from which
they were purchased for a refund.