Unregistered health products in Namphong District, Thailand

Abstract

To ascertain if grocery stores are selling unregistered or inappropriately labeled health products explore the health products available for sale in groceries in Namphong District, a rural community in the northeast of Thailand. Methods: Pharmacy staff from the Namphong Hospital visited 425 grocery stores in the Namphong District had survey in health risk product by the pharmacy staff of Namphong Hospital during May to and June, 2013. Stores were scored surveyed pharmacies for availability of unregistered health products and the language of labeling. Additional data on the kinds of health products available unregistered health products for sale and labeling and the source of the products was gathered via descriptive analysis. Descriptive data analysis as kinds of health product and source of product distribute. Results: 78.4% of groceries grocery stores had unregistered health products for sale and 64.2% of groceries had products that were not labeled in Thai. The products were labeled in Chinese (69.9%), Korean (27%) or Vietnamese (3.1%). Unregistered health products were classified as either health supplements (75.7%), such as coffee for weight loss (66.4%) and whitening cream (33.6%). The second products available in groceries are unregistered drugs (24.3%), such as burn cream (54.2%) and aphrodisiac (45.8%). Almost of Unregistered products were distributed sourced from either the internet (87.4%) or by direct sale from close friends (12.6%). Conclusion: Although illegal, unregistered health products are widely distributed in grocery stories of the Namphong District and consumers are not being protected from harmful products that do not provide indications or cautions in Thai. Although Thai FDA had been promoted the consumer should be read the label of product before decided to use and strict in registered products labeling and advertising in Thai language. Actually, they had not controlled because of globalization communication that encouragement and induced misuse.