Expired Birth Control Pills Recall In Canada: Drug Marts, Pharmacies Should Have Stringent Procedures Before Accepting Stocks, Routine Monitoring

Pharmacists called on drug marts to put in place stringent procedures before accepting stocks from manufacturers as well as conduct routine monitoring checks to ensure they are not selling expired drugs to consumers. The call followed recent reports of a lot of Alesse 21 birth control pills recalled by Shoppers Drug Mart. The batch had expired way back September 2014. About 100 women had reportedly bought the expired product.

Phil Emberley, director of pharmacy innovation at Canadian Pharmacists Association in Ottawa, said the bulk of responsibility of ensuring drugs being sold on the shelves aren’t expired lies on the pharmacies and drug stores. "Consumers would not find expired product if they were to go, if they were to pick a product from the shelf,” CBC News quoted Emberley. He said pharmacies and drug stores should implement a procedure that will ensure expired drug products are taken off the shelf before they actually expire.

The expired Alesse 21 birth control medication was sold in more than 20 Shoppers Drug Mart locations (list here). The company blamed “human error” for the oversight. “Human error at our distribution centre in Calgary resulted in an incorrect data entry to the inventory system.” The expired lot was then distributed to stores located in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Emberley believed staff of Shoppers Drug Mart assumed the stocks were just fairly new or had just newly arrived from the manufacturer, which is Pfizer, Inc. “I think there may have been that false sense of comfort that this product was still dispensable, when in fact it wasn't."

Julie Greenall, director of projects and education at the Institute for Safe Medication Practice Canada, said it is important that pharmacies and drug stores conduct manual checks as well and not just rely on technology in monitoring their stocks. Technology is not fail-safe, she said.

Talking to CBC, Greenall gave the following recommendations to prevent further mishaps concerning dispensing expired medications:

. An alphanumeric system for expiry dates that includes letters to make the numbers stand out.

· Expiry labels with the full four digits for the year.

· Printing EXP clearly to indicate the expiry date rather than the lot number.

· Have consumers check the expiry date themselves when possible.

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