Thursday, 01 May 2003

Australia's quack-medicine industry suffered a major setback this week, as a government agency issued a recall notice for several hundred products manufactured by a local Sydney pharmaceutical. Sold under brand names like "Nature's Own" and "Golden Glow," these High Potency Alfalfa and Super Papaya Enzyme tablets were made by a company that had been previously cited for making paracetamol tablets without any paracetamol in them. The company had apparently decided to cut costs by doing away with quality control altogether; instead of curing boils and enhancing sex lives, the recalled pills had excitingly random effects—the motion-sickness pills could send you on an entirely different kind of trip, and in general the pills may not have contained what the bottle said they would.

The recall notice involved so many products that the entire Australian vitamin supplement industry just about fell over: Every chemist in Australia has some of this stuff on the shelves, and they're still trying to sort the good pills from the bad. Because the pharmaceutical was a subcontractor to several companies, there's no easy way to isolate the problem drugs—you have to find the batch number printed on the bottle and see if it falls in a particular range, which varies for each company.

The real irony, though, is that none of the real drugs are affected by this recall: Just the bottles of Turbo Ginseng and Ultra Natural Herbal Formula, the stuff that looks like medicine but has no actual value. One reporter asked a doctor what the effects would be if patients had to stop taking these "medicines" all at once, and the doctor, after looking through the list, replied "nothing." If it weren't for the motion-sickness drug, which apparently contained an overdose of its active ingredient, the company could have kept right on making sugar pills and labeling them Super Celery Extract without anyone knowing the difference (except for the irate government inspectors who were sent to the manufacturing plant, of course).

A quick glossary: "Paracetamol" is the Australian name for acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and a "chemist" is what Americans would call a pharmacist. While I'm on the subject, "Panadol" is the Australian answer to Tylenol, "Nurofen" is their Advil, and after years of trying I still can't find the Aussie equivalent of Contac (my personal cold-and-flu wonder drug), so I buy a box when I'm in the States and bring it back with me.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 12:19 pm. comments.