Australia`s $4.7 billion vitamin industry is facing in-house deals that deduct employees` wages and health problems that have not been confirmed, according to couriermail.com.au.
As share prices soar and Chinese consumers scramble to buy Australian vitamin brands, two of Australia`s biggest vitamin companies, Swisse and Vitaco, have become Chinese names, according to an Australian News Corp survey.
Shanghai Medicine, which owns Vitaco, was shut down in 2007 for manufacturing problematic leukemia drugs, according to media reports. The drugs at the time caused pain and even partial paralysis in the legs of 200 patients.
Vitaco manufactures Healtheries,Nutra-life,Abundant Earth,Biolane,Musashi and BodyTrim.
People involved in Shanghai Medicine have been investigated by the ASIC about internal transactions, but no prosecution has been filed.
News Australia also found that almost all vitamin C and glucosamine come from China. It is reported that Swisse and Blackmore raw materials from China.
Vitaco`s amino acids and saccharin are from China, and Sanofi, which makes Nature`s Own,Ostelin and Cenovis vitamins at its Brisbane plant, imports raw materials from China.
The global food and nutritional additives industry is heavily dependent on China as a source of vitamin C, Blackmores said.
Chinese products are often linked to health problems, including the melamine incident in infant milk powder in 2008, which killed six babies and sickened 300000.
In addition to concerns about Chinese products, some vitamin companies have been found to deduct employees` wages.
One of the biggest problems in the vitamin industry, health experts say, is that they are allowed to put some unproven effects on their labels and tempt consumers to buy them.
Earlier this year, the government changed vitamin companies` labeling rules on packaging labels, but they angered consumers and science experts. These companies can now choose to label more than 1000 unproven claims on goods.
Ken Hervey, a professor of health at Monash University, said there was no scientific evidence to support the vitamin company`s claims, and when regulators asked the company to produce the evidence, they could not bring it out, but authorities did not impose penalties.
Last year, medical regulators in Australia received more than 400 complaints about vitamin bottle labels, but TGA did not remove the items from shelves or ensure that the companies changed their labels.
