Investigation finds pills past prime

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - When you're sick and taking over-the-counter medication, you want that medicine to work and to work fast. So WAVY.com was rather surprised when we visited nearly a dozen stores and found shelf after shelf of expired medicine. Our undercover camera captured video of the expired medication down the aisles of big name stores like Kmart, to bargain stores like Dollar General and Big Lots.

At a Dollar General on Airline Boulevard in Portsmouth we found medicine for infants that expired in October 2008. At another Dollar General store on High Street we found medicine for infants that expired three years ago.

Our cameras also captured expired antacid at a Fresh Pride in Suffolk along with a bottle of Children's Advil which expired in December 2007. In fact, WAVY.com found most of the expired medicine on store shelves was for infants and children.

We took our findings to pharmacist Leigh Williams at Lawrence Pharmacy in Chesapeake. Williams and his staff fill nearly one thousand prescriptions per day.

"The medication is a chemical and over time it deteriorates. The expiration date's purpose was to guarantee potency and to guarantee safety and after the expiration date those guarantees are null and void," said Williams.

To make sure your medicine works when you're not feeling well, Williams says buy what you need. If you won't use the mega-size bottle, don't buy it. He says to make a habit of flipping over the box and checking the epiration date yourself.

"It's definitely on the consumer to make sure they are buying something that's in date. It shouldn't be that way, but sometimes you gotta do things yourself," said Williams.

In these tough economic times, you want to stretch your dollar as far as possible. It doesn't make sense to buy medicine close to or past its prime, said Dr. Lisa McCoy, District Health Director for Suffolk, Franklin and surrounding counties.

"You definitely want to make sure the medicine that you're buying is as affective as possible for as long as possible."

WAVY.com went back to the stores and told the cashiers about the expired medicine. We wanted to make sure the medicine wasn't restocked. At the Towne Point Square Dollar General, the three-year-old expired infants ibuprofen was gone, but we did find two bottles of pain reliever for infants which expired in 2008.

WAVY.com contacted Dollar General regarding our findings at three of its stores.

An email from Tawn Miller, Director of Corporate Communications reads: "We are disappointed that out-of-date product was found on our shelves. At Dollar General, our goal is to deliver fresh, high-quality brand name and private brand products to customers by enforcing strict product handling policies at both our distribution centers and our stores. All stores are subject to a shelf replenishment policy that dictates the rotation of older product forward on a regular basis. We will continue to work to address this issue. Dollar General has dispatched a team to verify compliance with our inventory policies at stores in the Portsmouth area."

WAVY.com obtained statements from Kmart and Camellia Foods.

The Kmart statement reads: "At Kmart, the safety of our customers is a top priority. We regret that expired pain relievers were on our store's shelves. We have policies and procedures to ensure that product is removed from our shelves as it approaches its expiration date. In our stores surrounding the Portsmouth area, we reviewed these policies and procedures with our associates, and we checked the products on the shelves to ensure that any expired or short dated product has been handled according to our policy. It is never acceptable for expired pain relievers to be on our shelves."

A statement from J. Scott Beavers, Chief Operating Officer of Camilla Foods reads: "We appreciate your call yesterday, regarding your purchasing two out-of-date health care items at our Suffolk location. We take these matters very seriously. Our policy is for all personnel to pull any product, when nearing its expiration date. There is no excuse for how this product was missed all this time. After your call, all stores were notified to immediately check dating on all sensitive items (i.e., medicines, baby food, baby formula etc.) and throughout the three state chain, very few isolated issues were found. Even so, we have redoubled our efforts to make sure all out of date product is pulled in a timely fashion. We will be following up on this even more closely in the future. Our supervisors will be checking behind our store personnel more frequently for out-of-date issues on their visits to the stores. All personnel have also been re-notified of the importance of monitoring this issue. Fresh Pride is committed to being your friendly neighborhood market. Our commitment to quality product is high on our list, to insure customer confidence in our stores. Again, we appreciate your contacting us about this issue."

If you find a retailer that repeatedly stocks out-of-date medicine,