[PreciousPetal]

I bought a bottle of children's 5-12 nurofen syrup yesterday and discovered overnight that it has been tampered with. The seal on the bottom of the box (not the top) has been sliced open and the tamper proof seal over the lid of the bottle is missing. Otherwise there is a clean syringe in the box and if I hadn't twigged to the missing plastic seal in my sleep deprived state, I would have given it to DS.

The odds of someone doing something to the bottle is low, but why would a chemist have opened a box and the bottle and then replaced it behind the counter?? In doing my bit to cover the rare possibility of the contents being tampered with (I remember the panadol poisoning that prompted all these tamper proof seals in the first place) I tried to contact the chemist (closed), spoke to their main line (don't use it, bring it back and we'll give you a new one), called the number on the nurofen box (office hours only), called poisons information (don't use it, given a number to ring the pharmacological advisory board Monday) and finally the police (don't use it, take it up with the chemist).

Which brings me to EB. Just a reminder to check that all the seals on both the box and bottle are intact before you use them. I damn well hope there isn't anyone around messing with medications, because it won't be for my lacking of trying that people become informed .

This post has been edited by PreciousPetal: 23/12/2012, 12:02 PM

[mumofenergiserbu...]

Gllad that you were on your toes, thanks for the reminder. Hopefully the chemist will get the bottle tested.
Letsjust hope that it hasnt been tampered with and in the event it was been it was the only bottle.

[SeaPrincess]

Can you let us know where you bought it?

I don't even check the bottom seal on the box, just the top! Must be more careful.

[Sunnycat]

I never even thought to check the bottom seal, in fact I didn't even know there was one. Thanks for the heads up.

[PreciousPetal]

Well the good news is I am either delusional or they have changed the packaging and removed the plastic seal from over the lid of the bottle, since its not on my replacement bottle either. There is one of those *crack* type lids now so it looks like it was probably okay (I didn't try it out ). So best possible outcome .

I only looked at the bottom seal on the box because I was confused at the bottle looking like it was already open, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. The pharmacist didn't want to swap it over at all once it looked like it was only the seal on the box that was broken and the only thing that swayed her was that I'd already spoken to someone from the 1300 number of their chain. I also wasn't exactly thrilled when the pharmacist told me to check the seals next time before leaving the store, like I had done something wrong .

I'm still a bit miffed though that if there was some degenerate out there who wants to tamper with medication (as has happened in the past) or some flaw in the manufacturing process that there is no official avenue to jump on this kind of thing. I thought there'd at least be a system of notifying pharmacies to check their stock...

[tibs]

I'm still a bit miffed though that if there was some degenerate out there who wants to tamper with medication (as has happened in the past) or some flaw in the manufacturing process that there is no official avenue to jump on this kind of thing. I thought there'd at least be a system of notifying pharmacies to check their stock...

I know what you mean, years ago I went to a gp who I believed was not a real gp. I called AMA, health dept, etc just asking if there was some way I could check his name was that of a real GP. They just fobbed me off. Years later I saw an article in the paper where he had been arrested for medicare fraud and impersonating a doctor. Made my blood boil

[fizzy19]

I bought an infant one a few weeks ago and there was no plastic just a twist seal around the base of the lid