Australia's secretary for health, Trish Worth, today urged all companies that are still storing recalled complementary medicines manufactured by Pan Pharmaceuticals to immediately comply with medicines regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on providing information on when stock is being destroyed.
Worth's call follows yesterday's notification by leading supermarket Woolworths/Safeway that it inadvertently resold more than 2000 individual products manufactured by Pan Pharmaceuticals (from 47 product lines) across more than 400 stores, many of which had been returned to Woolworths by consumers for a refund.
The TGA demanded the recall of thousands of natural remedies made by Pan in April this year, citing serious health and safety concerns over its manufacturing and labelling procedures.
Woolworths said it would compile a complete list of products and advertise a further recall in newspapers tomorrow. It also apologised to the TGA, the Government and consumers for the mistakes.
Worth said she was shocked by the Woolworths/Safeway revelation which comes after a similar mistake by the Mayne Group earlier this week.
"Companies like Woolworths/Safeway have protocols in place to quarantine and dispose of foods and medicines that are often recalled for one reason or another. I am very disappointed to see such a breakdown in procedure, which has resulted in a small quantity of Pan manufactured products back on supermarket shelves," Worth said.
The TGA has recently written to all companies that used Pan Pharmaceuticals to manufacture their products asking them to produce a full report of their recall procedure, including the timing and method of disposal or destruction, said Worth.
The agency has also spoken with recall officers in all State and Territory health departments and asked them to undertake further spot checks on retailers to ensure that all Pan-made products are off the shelves.
New legislation brought in after the Pan recall gives TGA greater powers to require companies to destroy recalled goods.