Banned Drugs Pulled Off Shelves
By Khairunnisa Ibrahim and Abdul Rahim Mohd Taib

Bandar Seri Begawan - Some traditional medicines listed as dangerous were still being sold to the public yesterday morning when The Brunei Times was surveying a number of small stalls in the Kiulap area.

A second visit in the mid afternoon, however, revealed that these products had been pulled from the shelves. According to one of the vendors, an Indonesian sales assistant who only wished to be identified as Rachma, the decision to remove the harmful products was made by her superior after she had contacted him about the matter.

"I called my boss and asked him to have a look at the list of banned products. He came and took a look at them and withdrew those in the list from the outlet immediately, she said.

Some of the vendors interviewed said that they were not aware that a warning had been issued about these traditional medicines, which have been found to contain poisonous ingredients. Other outlets were found to carry some products with the same names as those found to be poisonous, but a further check revealed that these were manufactured by different companies from those listed by the National Agency of Drug and Food Control (NADFC) of Indonesia.

Meanwhile, some supermarkets in the nation were found not to carry these traditional medicines, which were imported from Indonesia.

According to Abdul Nazar, a supervisor at the Teguh Raya Supermarket in Kiulap, the store does not sell any medicines from Indonesia. "(The only product) we sell is a supplement food and drink, but they have been approved by the authority," he said.

He added that most of the medicines sold at the supermarket came from Malaysia. "We don't import them directly from the manufacturers but (we) are supplied from other agencies, and we only sell the medicines which are approved by the authority in this country. The authorities have also made a spot check to our pharmacy and found everything to be all right."

The Ministry of Health on Saturday issued a health warning for the public, which was published yesterday' in most local news media. A total of 93 medicinal products have been identified by the NADFC of several countries as containing substances controlled under Chapter 114 of the Poisons Act, which makes it an offence to import, sell or offer for sale any such products.

Of the 93 products listed, four products have been acknowledged available within the country and sold in local shops. The Ministry of Health has issued an advisory for the public to refrain from purchasing or using the products.

According to the head of NADFC Indonesia, Dr Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib, discoveries of the traditional medicines adulterated with dangerous substances were made through sampling and laboratory tests throughout 2006. In a statement on the official website of the Department of Communications and Information Technology of Indonesia, Husniah said that the NADFC had given a stern warning to the producers and distributors of these medicines and cautioned that they should withdraw and destroy those drugs.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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