A recent visit to Woolworths revealed that Panadol (several different versions of the drug) and Wagner (analgesics) list the marketer/supplier of the product eg Glaxo SmithKline (Panadol) and Wagner Pharmaceuticals (Wagner), but the country of origin is missing.
However in the case of Woolworths home brand of ibuprofen, the country of origin (India) is clearly labelled.
Is it legal to omit key facts like country of origin? Country of origin could be useful to Australian consumers in the event that another jurisdiction discovers such drugs are contaminated or not as effective as expected.
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Medicines aren’t required to have country of origin labelling. It is voluntary to have them on the packaging.
Country of origin isn’t used for recalls of medicines (or food). The batch number (and/or expiry date) would be used in any event a medicine is recalled for any reason. Batch number (and/or expiry date) will be on the packaging. The most common place I have seen them is on the folding lid in the case of tablet medicines or printed on the bottle/label of others.
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I have asked such questions of Wagner in the past. Ignored - not even acknowledged.
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Thanks for the quick feedback. I now better understand the issue. My concern is if we in AU have a similar problem to what was experienced in the US a few years ago when chinese made toothpaste was found to be contaminated. But ours was with analgesics.
As we can only go by the batch number etc on the folding lid, it puts us at a major disadvantage as we’ll have to wait for notification, if any, of the batch numbers of the item rather than be better informed by knowing, straight off the bat, where an item was made. Say I had a lot of foreign manufactured meds and heard on the news that several batches of chinese made meds were found to be contaminated.
If I had no idea where my meds were made, I would have to treat them all as suspect and keep away from them until I had the ALL CLEAR. Who knows when a comprehensive list of batches would be forthcoming?
But if however I knew mine were made in nations other than China, I could rest easy and keep using the meds.
Call me cynical but I suspect Big Pharma wrote the legislation for what is to me, a glaring omission.
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Outrageous!
It’s not assured where a particular product is manufactured, although for prescription medicines in particular, the approval process in Australia is stringent and regulated. We import 90% of our requirements.
In any recall would consumers first want to know the brand name of the individual pharmaceutical and manufacturers name? All to be followed up by the batch number. It seems exceptionally unlikely there would only be a partial and vague release of details such as country of origin. Useless if omitting key details including the product manufacturers brand/s necessary to check one’s own.
The country of origin is of little significance to a recall without the added details. It seems pointless to suggest there is any benefit not to.
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But what about the yellow peril?
Falling into a giant vat of custard at the Wonka Chocolate Factory? Not sure if that would add to the flavour or cause a NCR and rejected batch. I can swim. 
For urbanites, the greatest yellow peril is likely the line marking on or next to the curb, and follow up parking infringement notice. Assumes it’s not a tow-away zone.
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It is a reality that many medicines from vitamins to prescriptions are made with components from many countries. The country of manufacture is often where they are combined into their final form. Any given drug could be made up of product from India+China+USA and processed into a tablet in Switzerland. Which country of manufacture is most important? OTOH the batch number can be traced to the factory as well as the input ingredients.
I agree it would be nice to know where it was ‘manufactured’ as well as the batch number, but how much information the country of manufacture really provides (beyond possible peace of mind during a recall) is arguable.
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HI, as a longterm Pharma person and ex-regulator I can confirm that the Therapeutics Good Act doesn’t require a country of origin, last time I looked. However, consumer law requires medicines to have the country where the major step of manufacture is. Most in industry see this as where the active and excipients are compressed into a tablet (but they incorrectly could put the site of active manufacture, where it was packaged in blisters, where it was packaged in cartons, where it was released for sale etc.). The medicine pipeline is so complex for products, an overseas alert for an older genericised product may lead you to ask questions but more than likely various aspects of a local over the counter products will be different. Newer prescription medicines are more likely to be the same source as overseas product.
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Welcome to the community @Informedatlast.
Informative commentary, experience shared is one way members of the community can learn from each other.
May I ask, if the following link a suitable reference for those looking for information on recalls etc?
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Yes it is, for safety alerts and recalls. However, there are far more shortages around in Australia and around the world, for which patients and pharmacists are facing increasing difficulties in the maintenance of therapies than ever before. If you type in shortages in the search bar, you actually get 87 alerts for one or more medicines.
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Thanks for the feedback.
