Substandard food supplements on sale in Sylhet city

Substandard food-supplementary items of unknown companies are being sold in different pharmacies in Sylhet city in the absence of proper monitoring by the Drug Administration and the Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution.
According to sources at different medicine markets in the city, the physicians suggest their patients, irrespective of their ages, to take food-supplementary items in the name of different vitamins, forcing the pharmacy owners to collect the substandard items of different companies.
Most of the physicians randomly prescribe food-supplementary items to their patients for extra-earning in the forms of various gifts from the sales agents of different companies, the sources said.
Ehteshamul Haq, assistant director in the Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital and president of the Swadhinata Chikithsak Forum in Sylhet, said a physician can prescribe some high-standard food-supplementary for the old and pregnant patients.
‘But such items should not be prescribed to patients of all ages,’ he added.
A good number of pharmacy owners claimed that there were about fifty institutions in the country which import some low-standard and adulterated vitamins from different countries that includes China, Thaiwan, Germany and USA and market them as food-supplementary after labelling attractive trade name.
Even the companies, which are marketing such food-supplements, do not bother to have approval of the Drug Administration and the BSTI before marketing their products, the pharmacy owners said.
They said the companies also fix the prices of such products at their whims and each file of 30 to 60 tablets of such food-supplements is being sold now between Tk 320 and Tk 2,200.
Such food-supplements of Biocare Pharma, Bibs Pharma, 3-M Enterprise, Estrone, Uni-aid Enterprise, Zansing Health Product Private Limited, A&D International, MD Trading International and Elic Marketing Company are available in the pharmacies in Sylhet, sources concerned said.
Being contacted, the divisional superintendent of drug, Shafiqul Islam, told New Age that launching drive against substandard products of food-supplementary is out of their jurisdiction.
The director in the regional office of the BSTI, Rezaul Karim, said they would soon take steps to conduct drive against such substandard food-supplements and seize them.

Courtesy of NewAgebd