FDA Notice: Family Dollar Issues Massive Drug Recall

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Retailer Family Dollar issued a recall of dozens of products and over-the-counter drugs across the United States, according to a notice published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The recall notice, issued this week, said the company is voluntarily recalling some over-the-counter drugs and medical devices that are regulated by the FDA because the items weren’t “stored outside of labeled temperature requirements by Family Dollar” that were shipped to stores between June and September 2023. The items were sold between June 1 and Oct. 4, 2023, it said.

So far, no consumer complaints have been reported to date, according to the notice. The recall instead is being implemented “out of an abundance of caution,” it said.

The recall, meanwhile, applies to products that were sold in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia.

“Family Dollar has notified its affected stores asking them to check their stock immediately and to quarantine and discontinue the sale of any affected product,” said the notice. “Customers who purchased affected product may return such product to the Family Dollar store where they were purchased without receipt.”

Products that are being subject to the recall include a range of common, popular over-the-counter medications made by Nyquil, Tylenol, Advil, Crest, Colgate, Swan, Fleet, Pepto Bismol, Vicks, Bayer, and dozens of more products. The full list of products is available via the FDA’s website.

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Customers with questions about the recall can contact Family Dollar Customer Service at 844-636-7687 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET. If anyone has experienced any health-related problems in connection to the affected products, they should contact a doctor or health care provider, it said.

The Family Dollar logo is centered above one of its variety stores in Canton, Miss., on Nov. 12, 2020. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo)

The FDA also urges customers to report adverse reactions to the federal health regulator’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program through its website, by regular mail, or by fax.

Other details about the recall were not provided by Family Dollar or the FDA.

Prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and supplements generally need to be stored at temperatures listed on their product labels. However, most of these products should be kept away from sunlight, high temperatures, and high humidity for extended periods of time.

Storing medicine at the wrong temperature can “potentially lead to loss of potency or even reduce the effectiveness of the medication,” according to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center’s website.

The site noted that most over-the-counter “products are dosage forms that are less likely to be impacted by temperatures,” as compared with prescription drugs, the center added.

Amanda Savage, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy, told Today.com that consumers should also stop storing medications in bathrooms because of high temperatures and high humidity.

Other Recalls

Earlier this month, a FDA notice also announced the recall of a blood pressure medication due to the presence of the synthetic opioid oxycodone, which may be mixed in with the product and can cause adverse reactions.

KVK-Tech confirmed it is recalling one lot of 10-milligram betaxolol tablets, which were distributed around the United States to retailers and wholesalers, the FDA-backed notice said.

The batch is being recalled as a precaution after an oxycodone tablet was found on the packaging line during the line clearance when the batch was packaged. No reports of a “foreign tablet” have been found inside betaxolol bottles to date, the company said.

“The betaxolol package insert warns about slowing in the heart rate in elderly patients which is likely to be exacerbated by inadvertent opioid administration,” the recall notice said.

“Additionally, some patients prescribed low-dose betaxolol might be have compromised heart and lung function that is also likely to be exacerbated by an opioid. Furthermore, there are minor differences in appearance between betaxolol 10 mg tablets and oxycodone 5 mg tablets, not likely to be noticed by a regular user of the 10 mg betaxolol tablet.”

The notice added that patients who are at risk of an overdose “are likely to be negatively affected” by receiving oxycodone, a powerful opioid drug that led to an epidemic that started in the early 2000s.