An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The seizure and quar­an­ti­ning of mil­lions of dol­lars worth of un­reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals at the ware­house of a cos­met­ics com­pa­ny in Trinci­ty on Fri­day has trig­gered fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions as of­fi­cials move to crack down on the sale of ex­pired and un­reg­is­tered drugs at phar­ma­cies across the coun­try.

Po­lice seized $1.5 mil­lion worth of un­reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals while $10 mil­lion more has been put un­der quar­an­tine.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher praised the ef­forts of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) which was cred­it­ed for in­ves­ti­gat­ing sev­er­al re­ports about the sale of un­reg­is­tered and ex­pired drugs through­out the coun­try.

In­clud­ed in the seizure were 14,227 un­reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items val­ued at over $1.5 mil­lion which are not al­lowed to be sold in T&T.

Op­er­a­tion Wind­sor was planned and ex­e­cut­ed in con­junc­tion with the Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion (CFDD), Min­istry of Health, to in­ves­ti­gate re­ports from the pub­lic.

Al­though the TTPS did not say when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan, doc­u­ment­ed in­for­ma­tion from the CFDD in­di­cat­ed that “many phar­ma­cies have breached the Food and Drug Act, Chap­ter 30:01”.

The cos­met­ic com­pa­ny was list­ed as one of the com­pa­nies in which un­reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals were found at its var­i­ous lo­ca­tions. Food and Drug in­spec­tors vis­it­ed their ware­house at Tis­sue Dri­ve, Trinci­ty In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, around mid­day on Fri­day and or­dered that the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tion of the ware­house be placed un­der im­me­di­ate quar­an­tine ow­ing to the lack of a Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Whole­sale Li­cence or a li­cenced phar­ma­cist for the site.

The TTPS said that dur­ing Fri­day’s vis­it of­fi­cers were met by a di­rec­tor of the com­pa­ny and a ware­house man­ag­er. Fol­low­ing an in­spec­tion of the ware­house for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items stored at the lo­ca­tion, CFDD in­spec­tors along with ASP Haynes asked for cer­tain doc­u­men­ta­tion and in­for­ma­tion.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, CFDD in­spec­tors found sev­er­al breach­es of the Food and Drug Act Chap­ter 30:01.

“The in­spec­tors al­so im­me­di­ate­ly seized 14,227 phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items, which were found to be un­reg­is­tered and there­fore not al­lowed to be sold in Trinidad and To­ba­go. These items were es­ti­mat­ed to be val­ued at over $1.5 mil­lion. The items quar­an­tined at the ware­house were es­ti­mat­ed to be val­ued at over $10 mil­lion.”

Seizure no­tices were is­sued to the ware­house man­ag­er and the ware­house area was se­cured and or­dered sealed by the CFDD in­spec­tors.

The seized items were tak­en to the Chem­istry Food and Drugs Lab­o­ra­to­ry Build­ing, Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain, for safe­keep­ing and fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The CoP as­sured that the MATF will con­tin­ue to in­ves­ti­gate re­ports to iden­ti­fy the ori­gin of un­reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items en­ter­ing the coun­try.

En­force­ment at phar­ma­cies start­ed 3 months ago—Phar­ma­cy Board

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar seizure, Phar­ma­cy Board pres­i­dent Clin­ton Sa­hadeo said he could not give any de­fin­i­tive state­ments as they had not been no­ti­fied if the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals seized had been list­ed.

How­ev­er, he said, “I have been wary of what seizures have been tak­ing place. The Min­istry of Health is the one with the au­thor­i­ty to seize any­thing that is not reg­is­tered for sale in T&T, and the CFDD comes un­der them.”

Asked whether the Board was aware of un­reg­is­tered or ex­pired drugs be­ing sold in the coun­try, Sa­hadeo said they were not aware.

He added, “We have asked phar­ma­cists to no­ti­fy the Board of what the Food and Drug had seized from their phar­ma­cies. This thing start­ed a long time ago and so far, we have got­ten no re­spons­es from any phar­ma­cies.”

Sa­hadeo said seizures start­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months ago when “they had start­ed check­ing on phar­ma­cies, and they did seize one or two things but the Phar­ma­cy Board So­ci­ety had made a state­ment with re­spect to ex­pired things be­cause re­al­ly and tru­ly, you are go­ing to find ex­pired things in a phar­ma­cy.”

He said they have since ad­vised own­ers and op­er­a­tors of phar­ma­cies to “list all ex­pired things in a book, put them in a box, and mark ex­pired stuff on it”.

Sa­hadeo ex­plained that ex­pired phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals could not just be dumped in the garbage as ap­provals had to be ob­tained from the MOH for dis­pos­al of items such as an­tibi­otics, nar­cotics, and con­trolled drugs.

“They have to get it writ­ten off the books,” he said.

Asked if ex­pired phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals could end up be­ing sold un­der the counter at a cheap­er price in­stead of be­ing marked for dis­pos­al, Sa­hadeo said, “Hon­est­ly and tru­ly, it boils down to ethics. There are un­scrupu­lous peo­ple who will want to sell things. The ma­jor­i­ty of phar­ma­cies I know are fol­low­ing the rules with ex­pired stuff.

“We have been in­spect­ing phar­ma­cies from the Coun­cil of the Phar­ma­cy Board and we have been deal­ing with that is­sue of ex­pired drugs and they all un­der­stand that ex­pired stuff is not to be sold.”

In a na­tion­wide crack­down on the sale of un­reg­is­tered drugs, the Food and Drug Di­vi­sion con­fis­cat­ed sev­er­al drugs, in­clud­ing vi­t­a­mins, from over 40 phar­ma­cies across T&T in Au­gust. The val­ue of the drugs seized was es­ti­mat­ed at $.5 mil­lion.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.