Stores selling expired children’s medicine

http://www.nbc12.com/story/33648460/stores-selling-expired-childrens-medicine

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) –

When you buy milk, you check the expiration date and same with bread.

However, stores are selling expired children’s medicine — allergy relievers, cold medications, pain relievers.  

Over the summer, we went to 18 different drug and dollars stores across Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield.

We visited Walgreens, CVS, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar General and looked at the expiration dates of every box of children’s medication on the shelves.

And 44 percent of all the stores we visited failed our check. They had at least one expired children’s medication for sale on the shelf.

We didn’t find a single out-of-date medication on the shelves of the CVS and Dollar Trees we visited.

But on multiple occasions at Dollar General, Family Dollar and Walgreens, we found several children’s medications on the shelves — expired, old, out of date. We discovered expired cold and cough meds from February, October, and November of 2015.

We even found meds dating back to 2014. The manager at a Family Dollar on Williamsburg Road actually asked us what we were checking and pulled every expired drug from the shelves immediately.

We tried to buy a few of the expired products at some of the stores and easily walked out with the medication.

Most of the time, nobody looked at the date and stopped us, but a few cashiers were paying attention.

A lady at a Dollar General on Hull Street in Chesterfield looked at the dates before I paid and said, “I can’t sell you that. It’s expired.”

At a Dollar General on Iron Bridge Road, the clerk stopped us. She labeled the medications as expired and pulled them off the shelves.

Do the expiration dates really matter? The Food and Drug Administration thinks so. It says selling expired medications is illegal, but the agency doesn’t enforce it. Instead, they leave that to the states. There’s a video on the FDA’s website all about why you should care about the dates.

Another article tells you to toss out-of-date drugs because of health risks.

“Always check the expiration date, particularly if you think it might take you a year to use that medication,” said Dr. Ruddy Rose. He helms Virginia’s Poison Control Center and stresses that he doesn’t think expired over the counter drugs are necessarily harmful, just less effective. 

“That’s really based on potency and not based on being toxic,” said Rose. He says there are several prescription drugs that do turn toxic over time, so getting in the habit of checking all your medications is good practice.

It’s very easy to check the dates — just turn the box upside down. It’s usually printed on the bottom.

In statements, Dollar General, Family Dollar Stores and Walgreens all told us they take expiration dates on medications very seriously. They’ve all taken the time to review procedures with store employees to make sure expired products are pulled from the shelves. 

Here is the statement from Walgreens:

We have procedures in place to routinely check the expiration dates on items, and we take those procedures very seriously. We have since checked the expiration dates at the stores in question and have reviewed our procedures with store employees.

Phil Caruso
Walgreens Media Relations

Here is the statement from Dollar General:

Dollar General is committed to providing its customers with high-quality, reliable products, which includes taking the necessary steps to ensure that products on our shelves are within their respective sell-by dates. We are disappointed to learn that out-of-date products were located on our shelves and have taken immediate action to address the situation.

Here is the statement from Family Dollar Stores:

Please know that the safety of our Associates and customers is our first priority, and we take situations like this seriously. As part of Family Dollar’s “freshness program”, we ask our Associates to check the dates on various items once a week when they re-stock shelves.

When items that are nearing their expiration or “best by” date are identified, they are either removed or marked down – depending on the item.

In this instance it’s evident that these items were missed by our store teams. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Please know that we will be reviewing these sections in all area stores to ensure we have identified any aged product. Additionally, we will use this opportunity to reiterate the details of our program to our Associates to ensure its importance is understood and that protocols are followed.
               
Bryn R. Winburn
Public & Media Relations Manager

Filed under: General Problems