What Happens to Fake Tylenol, Responsible Entity?

Several companies have since informed the ministry of having bought the fake Tylenol and have handed them over to the authorities. The ministry has proceeded to remove them from shelves after which they will be destroyed. But what happens next, should the investigation reveal the responsible entity? Here’s what Health Minister Kevin Bernard had to say.

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health & Wellness

Kevin Bernard

“You have the commercialized and you have the retail. Now you have people who genuinely apply for importation.  Now if that person may have applied for importation…now we know what happens sometimes, which is wrong, yo pay and yo import a certain amount, but behind the scenes you have a next amount weh di come and not account for. So those are the things that we need to crack down on. And it requires a whole approach; not just the Ministry of Health. And we have good relationship with customs; we have a good relationship with border management and controls that we have in place. We need to crack down on these things. A few months ago, we heard about a case in the north where a huge amount, I think customs had charged them about seven hundred and odd thousand [dollars] where they were trying to bring illegal medication without registering the medication. And so these are things that we have been cracking down on to ensure there are no loopholes left. But again, we need to tighten the law to address these kinds of issues. And I say this because if somebody who is a wholesaler brings in a product, they would have already sought the permit and the requirements to bring in the product. So the retailer would buy from the wholesaler so that retailer does not necessarily have to get the permission and that’s where we feel there was the loophole and so we have to tighten that and that’s what we are going to fix.”