How well do you inspect the tamper-proof seals on your OTC meds?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Where I worked it’d be very easy to tamper with. First of all I was a temp, when you showed up you assigned to a line. It was different. If you didn’t like your line, you could ask the supervisor to switch. They did. There was no record kept of where you went on the line or if you switched.

And even if you didn’t switch, it’d be easy to pull pills, tamper with them and keep them. Then days later, or weeks later, you’d ask your supervisor to got to the rest room and then you’d walk pass the line, where you aren’t working and just say hi to one of the workers and slip the pill into the line there.

Of course the contaminated pills would be in a batch number. That would be very easy to trace back and in theory you should have a list of workers on that line, but the lines were not static.

For example, I was on a line and I was fairly quick, so they pulled my co-worker and had him pack on another line for an hour then put him back with me. He is still on record as being on my line, not on the packing line.

Finally we were temp workers, when I read the line ups it’d be line

John Smith, Mary Doe, and 3 agency.

Agency is temp workers, so the factory isn’t recording workers names, but just the fact they came from the temp agency. The supervisor from the agency had a list of workers but I don’t know if they kept it. It certainly wasn’t accurate though.

For instance, if I was put on line 3, the factory manager could pull me and put me where he saw fit. Many time the temp supervisor would be looking all over for a worker, she put on one line and someone else moved

22

If I were the FBI, I think my first instinct would be to suspect any workers from a temp agency, more so than the full-time employees. Either way, I’m sure they’d run every name that passed through the facility as a possible suspect to pin the criminal down.

Not a good plan if you’re a wily and paranoid psychopath.

23

My interest piqued, I just stuck an insulin syringe into the foil of an unopened pill bottle. The insulin needle is the smallest gauge I have on hand that’s a hollow needle capable of delivering liquid - I think maybe a PPD (transdermal) needle is smaller, but if it is, it’s not by much.

It left a pretty obvious hole and dimple on the foil. Obvious enough that even without an eagle eye, I’d have noticed it as I opened the package. Plus, of course, the needle is so short that I couldn’t inject anything *into *the medication that way - I’d have to poison you with something that would contact but not dissolve the medication, and not leave visible or scent traces on the pills. I’m not sure what could do that.

There’s no way I could stab this needle through the hard plastic of the bottle without bending it and rendering it useless. Yes, I tried. It bent like foil.

24

I thought about that as well. I also thought about a few workarounds. First off, you could use a much heavier gauge needle and instead of plunging it in, take your time and sort of ‘drill’ through the hard plastic. Then I got a better idea. Just get a very small drill bit and drill a small hole in the bottom. Use the syringe to inject your poison of choice and then repackage the bottle.

For all the people that check the temper proof seals, I’ll bet very very few take a look at the bottom of the bottle. I know I never have. Even flipping the bottle over to get the pills out, I don’t think I’ve ever paid close enough attention to notice a small hole.

25

WhyNot: Too cool!.. that is rather conspicuous, and alarming, I’d have to say. My sister is type 1 diabetic, so I’m familiar with how tiny those needles are. I didn’t expect that sort of obvious dimple/hole at all. You’d be nuts to ingest the pills after seeing that.

Joey P: You could also patch the drill hole with some sort of compound to make it less obvious.

26

I was little when the Tylenol poisonings occurred. I remember being so sacred that I would drink from the wrong side of a drinking glass (the edge away from me) in case someone tried to tamper with my glass.

For decades I could not be the first person to take medicine from a new bottle. I knew it was absurd, but it was a very traumatic experience and imprinted on me. I can’t use anything if the seal is at all tampered with. I have mild PTSD from childhood traumas, and the Tylenol scare just played right into them.

27

I was 9 when it all went down. It was the dawning realization that there are people out there that can kill random innocent people, so easily. That 9 year old is still creeped out in my head.

28

Sure, and we have to manage risks like that all the time. I had another bottle of pills right there with an intact seal, I’d use those ones and put the other bottle on the grocery list to exchange the next time I was at the store. But if the option is take the pill or drive back to the store, taking the pill is much more likely to be safe.

Not useless. It’s just that most of the value in it is prevention of threats, not notification of them. Again, if there’s another bottle handy, I’ll use it. But the hypothetical I responded to was “Use the drugs, or take them back to the store”. I think that’s a reasonable hypothetical, too. Most people don’t keep multiple sealed containers of medication around. To exchange it, to fix the headache you have, you probably have to drive somewhere (in a less-than-excellent mental state, no less) to do it.

If someone wanted to poison random people, why not pick a lower-hanging fruit than a product that’s tamper-resistant? We eat and drink all kinds of things that don’t have special seals on them.

29

Like, literally. I bet a psycho with a few minutes in the produce section with a syringe could wreak a lot of havoc.

30

Exactly. These are movie plot threats, and there really aren’t any reasonable ways to defend against a determined individual bent on destruction. It’s scary to think that crazy or evil people can just kill randomly and we have no great ways to protect ourselves, so we focus on past events and make sure that specific thing can’t happen again, but it’s just window dressing.

Hopefully it’s comforting that, with all the opportunity to do random evil, there really are very few people who even make an attempt.

31

And what good would it do? You’d have a list of agency workers all denying it. Since you’re all wearing rubber gloves constantly you wouldn’t even have DNA on the pills.

32

I’m not a detective, nor a criminologist, so I have no idea. I imagine the chances of getting caught would be far greater, than tampering with a product already on the shelves.

And I agree, there are far more easier ways to kill random people, in ways I probably haven’t ever considered.

33

I well remember the impact of that scare and, come to think of it, I believe I do always give at least some consideration to all OTC packaging. Usually it’s such a bitch to get through there’s little doubt the integrity hasn’t been compromised.

34

Honestly, Markxxx, the way you’ve described that company’s packaging line in this thread (and in the past)…I have a feeling they aren’t entirely cGMP compliant! Every activity by every worker that interacts with the drug product (including packaging) needs to be documented. Were the packaging lines at least closed access; use of an assigned keycard or something to get into each of them? Card swipes would work to track employees with access to lines during packaging of certain batches.

The Canadian and American (c)GMP regulations are basically the same; I’m citing the Canadian ones because I’m more familiar with the webpage. Regulation C.02.020(6);

If the company didn’t know which temp workers they had on hand (and attached to what work on what products), then they were in violation of this regulation.

Regulation C.02.011:

The interpretation of C.02.011 by Health Canada - that is, the minimum requirement that companies are expected to adhere to - includes the following for the Packaging Operations:

If operator names were not being written down, then again GMP is being violated. Note that a “significant step” includes things that may seem trivial like reloading a hopper, weighing out amounts of bulk tablets, etc.

GMP is the applied interpretation of federal law; you make the company you worked for sound very iffy!