FDA warns Dollar Tree for importing unsafe drugs from China

Discount retailer Dollar Tree has been warned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some of its over-the-counter drugs are coming from suspect foreign manufacturers.

UPI reported that the FDA sent a letter to Dollar Tree saying that some of its pharmaceutical products — sold under the name Assured Brands — were supplied by Chinese firms with a “pattern of serious violations” of U.S. law.

“FDA inspections of these foreign facilities revealed significant violations of current good manufacturing practice,” the warning letter, dated Nov. 6, states.

The FDA cited a recent inspection of a Chinese factory at which an acne treatment product was manufactured, and said inspectors there found failures to “conduct component identity testing” and “test each batch of drug for objectionable micro-organisms prior to distribution.”

The agency also noted an inspection visit to China-based Bicooya Cosmetics, where officials found the company wasn’t testing finished drug products or looking for evidence of rodent droppings at the manufacturing facility.

Randy Guiler, Dollar Tree’s vice president of investor relations, responded with a pledge for product quality.

“We are committed to our customers’ safety and have very robust and rigorous testing programs in place to ensure our third-party manufacturers’ products are safe,” he said.

Dollar Tree told the FDA it wouldn’t buy products from any company targeted by U.S. regulators. The agency, however, said that was “not always the case,” Business Insider reported Friday.