CVS Pharmacy to pay New Jersey $500,000 to settle dispute
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — CVS Pharmacy will pay New Jersey more than $500,000 as part of a settlement to protect consumers from buying medications and other items exposed to elevated temperatures for prolonged periods of time.
Acting state Attorney General John Hoffman announced the agreement Wednesday.
It follows two separate 2012 incidents in which CVS pharmacies in Scotch Plains and Clark experienced air conditioning outages for multiple days. The stores kept operating after inside temperatures exceeded the maximum recommended for the storage of drugs and other items for extended periods of time.
Certain medications may lose effectiveness if exposed to elevated temperatures for prolonged periods. No injuries or illnesses resulting from the 2012 incidents have been reported.
Among other things, Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS is converting its New Jersey stores to web-accessible or other systems to monitor and report on temperatures.
So if medication that is exposed to elevated temperature for extended periods of time above what is recommended by the FDA.. is considered non-salable … Why is there no concern for mail order pharmacies that sends millions of Rx medications thru the mail ? I have not seen many delivery service trucks ( UPS, Fed-X, USPS) that are temperature controlled… Could it be that the because the pt pays for the medication before it is transferred to a carrier service… that the responsibility for maintaining proper temperature storage is now the pt’s… who has no control over the storage temp during shipment. Is this another one of those “cracks in the system” that some people fall into…but in the case of mail order pharmacies.. there are millions and millions of Rxs being delivered to pts.. that for all practical purposes.. are most likely considered ADULTERATED ?
PROFITS OVER SAFETY ?
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Why is none of this a surprise? A few years ago, the air conditioner which cooled the pharmacy failed in the summer months. It took 3 months to get it repaired during which time the temperature in the pharmacy reached 88 degrees.
This 500K is not even a penny to a big corporation. The situation represents only a sliver of what is going on everywhere.
If mail order pharmacies are selling adulterated products should mail order prescriptions be banned?
Neither are the trucks that deliver regular pharmaceutical supplies to the pharmacies temperature controlled. I wonder if the warehouses are temperature controlled either. I think the key words are probably “storage requirements” not shipping requirements. Temporary temperature excursions are probably permitted by what ever authority controls standards. That’s how we have mail order.
So if mail order delivery systems are not temperature controlled and the contents of packages may be unsafe for human consumption, why are these products allowed to sold? Who can I sue?
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Well in November 2014 20+ stores in PA and Ohio received pharmacy orders that were exposed to extreme temperatures. These stores were serviced out of Somerset Pa. Corporate made calls to patients and had them exchange medications….pharmacists were left out of the loop and told not to speak on the matter. Two of the stores are here in Harrisburg PA. The BOP is aware and the AG’s office as well. When a grocery store sells bad meat, it’s all over the media…something stinks here!!! I am glad to see that the State of NJ has been fining for the evil ways.