Denmark clamps down on glucosamine products
The DMA said the website owner had been issuing debt collection notices to consumers that had sough to return the products after learning they were fakes.
“The case has been handed to the police,” the head of the agency’s enforcement division, Kim Helleberg-Madsen told NutraIngredients.
But he said the problem that had seen the agency confiscate 1500 boxes of unauthorised glucosamine, was not peculiar to the Danish market.
“The broader problem of illegal medicines is a big problem in a lot of countries,” he said. “There is a huge problem on the internet.”
The DMA warned that consumers who purchase illegal medicines are liable to a DK2500 fine.
It said it considered the Singapore-registered company behind the product, Helse Danmark A/S, to be fake.
Deception
”We have never seen so many packages of one single medicine from one website imported into Denmark within such a short period of time,” says the DMA’s Frank Wendelbo-Madsen.
“Unfortunately, sundeled.dk has broken an already sad record in deceiving Danes into purchasing medicines illegally. Consequently, we warn people in order to avoid more Danes being cheated.”
In the past six months the DMA in conjunction with the Danish tax and customs authorities had ceized 1451 packages of the joint health supplement.
“In addition, we have still not been able to register all of the boxes with packages of medicine, potentially containing glucosamine.”
But it affirmed glucosamine was an authorised over-the-counter medicine in Denmark.
It noted the company had other websites including www.helsedanmark.dk, www.sawpalmetto.dk, www.curcumin.dk and www.ginkgobiloba.dk.
The DMA has been reassessing whether the state should continue to reimburse patients who buy the joint health supplement glucosamine (M01AX05) from pharmacies after clinical studies questioned its efficacy for the alleviation of painful osteoarthritis.
