Media release from the Food and Grocery Council

Medsafe's supermarket ban of certain cough remedies will dramatically reduce family access to relief

Medsafe's surprise annoucement today that from 1 May next year cough and cold medicines for children aged 6 - 12 years will be banned from supermarkets, again shows what little effort it puts into keeping stakeholders informed, says Food and Grocery Chief Executive, Katherine Rich.

"In choosing to issue its press statement today, Medsafe has failed to include a number of key stakeholders in the management of this decision including FGC, the Retailers Association and the supermarkets themselves. These are significant stakeholders who will have the job of implementing this decision."

"This is a poor regulatory decision because there is no evidence that there is any safety issue for children within this 6 -12 years age group. But yet Medsafe has gone ahead regardless."

"Any evaluation of adverse reaction data from the Centre for Adverse Reaction Monitoring and the New Zealand Poisons Centre shows that the products available in supermarkets are not the ones causing any safety issues. This is the kind of evidence that we'd expect common sense regulators to take notice of."

"Medsafe's decision will hit kiwi families in the pocket hard. According to our recent comparison of supermarket versus pharmacy prices, this will result in price increases, in some cases by more than 140% for the same product."

Mrs Rich say that Medsafe's process for announcing this decision without sufficient consultation has been arrogant and disappointing. Unfortunately this is becoming a pattern.