A pharmaceutical company in Yunlin County has been changing the expiration dates of 65 types of dietary supplement products, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday.
A dietary supplement packaging plant, Szu Horng (世鴻藥業有限公司), allegedly altered the packages of dietary supplement products that had expired or nearly expired, and printed false batch numbers and expiration dates on them.
FDA Northern Center Senior Executive Officer Wei Jen-ting (魏任廷) said the agency noticed that the lutein level in a children’s macutein chewable tablet product imported by Pu Deng Technology Co (普登科技實業有限公司) was 1.4mg per tablet, much lower than the 5mg per tablet the label said it contained.
Tracing the source of the product, the FDA discovered that the packaging plant had a sales volume of the problematic products much higher than its import volume.
Collaborating with the police, prosecutors and local health bureaus, the FDA inspected the company and discovered 65 products that had false expiration dates — a year later than the original expiration date — printed on them.
The FDA said Szu Horng faces a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,844 and US$6.15 million) for violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) by printing false batch numbers and expiration dates.
Pu Deng faces a fine of between NT$40,000 and NT$4 million for false labeling of the lutein level in its macutein chewable tablets and also another NT$40,000 to NT$4 million for misleadingly saying on its Web site that the products were manufactured by CPH-Formulation Technology Corp of the US.
About 250,000 tablets were confiscated and the company has been asked to recall all of its problematic products from retail stores, the administration said.
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