Each year in Australia around 225 people are hospitalised and 50 people die from paracetamol overdose.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) made the interim decision to reduce the pack sizes after public consultation in September.
For supermarkets and convenience stores, packs of 20 tablets will be reduced to a maximum of 16 tablets.
“Pharmacy only” packs that previously sold a maximum of 100 tablets – without the supervision of a pharmacist – will be slashed to just 32 tablets a pack.
Pack sizes of up to 100 tablets will only be available with the supervision of a pharmacist.
Cincotta Chemist Auburn pharmacist Karen Tsang says paracetamol products should be removed from supermarkets altogether.
“Leave it to the professionals,” she said.
“Pharmacy staff are trained to ensure their customers are consuming the products at safe levels.
“Just as Panadol Osteo became a pharmacy-only medication a couple of years ago, the same should go for all paracetamol products.”
Ms Tsang said an issue was that there were so many products in supermarkets and consumers could get confused thinking the different brands were different products and not all the same.
“I don’t think reducing the packet size will make much of a difference; people will just buy more packets.”
Priceline Lidcombe pharmacist Hana agrees.
“There’s absolutely no reason paracetamol should be sold in supermarkets; it’s incredibly dangerous, especially in children and changing packet sizes won’t help,” she said.
Have your say by March 3 at consultations.tga.gov.au.
