Woman Finds Tampered Medication from Louisiana Walmart

A Facebook post made by a Louisiana woman is making its rounds on social media after she shared that medication she purchased from a local Walmart had been tampered with.

Most medications have a "do not take if seal is broken" label on the bottle for situations exactly like this one.

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Katie Leger explains how she ordered a bottle of Equate Cetirizine Hydrochloride, a generic version of Zyrtec, through Walmart’s delivery service. However, when she and her husband tried to open the bottle, they couldn’t.

Thinking it was defective, they cut it open only to find a handful of white pills resembling Tic-Tacs instead of the allergy medication she had purchased. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the foil seal was tampered with, and the lid appeared to be hot-glued shut.

Katie Leger

While Walmart refunded her purchase, the company’s response felt lackluster to her, leaving her and others on social media to wonder if this was an isolated incident or something more serious within the supply chain.

Someone went through the trouble of opening the bottle, taking the medication out, refilling it with what looks like Tic-Tacs although that is still unconfirmed, and hot gluing the lid on.

Personally, I can't imagine someone whipping out a glue gun in Walmart and doing this however, crazier things have happened. They may have purchased the product and returned it with the fake pills inside, but even then, most stores have policies about certain items like medications being 'damaged out' when returned to prevent situations like what happened to Katie.

It may be more likely that the medication was tampered with before it even arrived on Walmart shelves.

Her Post Reads:

"While I’m not one to use Facebook as a soapbox, I’m truly stumped and need yall to weigh in…

On Sunday, I did a Walmart grocery delivery to my home like I’ve done a dozen times before. In my order, I got a bottle of Equate Cetirizine Hydrochloride (generic Zyrtec), which I’ve purchased a number of times from my local Walmart, with no issue.

Sunday night before bed, while taking my other night-time medicines, I was attempting to open my new bottle of allergy pills and could not get the top to open. I asked my husband for assistance, and even he could not get it open. We both assumed the screw top was defective. He offered to cut the bottom of the bottle off for me so I could access the pills inside.

After cutting off the bottom of the bottle my heart sank. Inside the bottle were the pictured white “pills” that resemble Tic-Tacs. There were supposed to be 45 tablets in this bottle and there were only a handful of whatever these “pills” are.. I then noticed the foil top of the bottle had been pushed in, and the top was hot glued onto the bottle. There were no signs of tampering on the cardboard box that the pill bottle comes in.

The cardboard was sealed shut like normal. My Forensic Files brain immediately went to the cynanide Tylenol episode and I panicked.. we bagged everything into a plastic baggy with plans to call Walmart the next day..

I reached out to Walmart corporate who asked for pictures of the bottle, then refunded my money and went about their business, with seemingly no concern.

My question is this.. have any of you ever experienced anything like this? Am I over reacting? Was this done at my local store or is this a supply chain issue? Is this the result of a thief who replaced the allergy medicine with the other “pills” or someone with evil intentions? And lastly.. what do I do next? I would hate for someone to get hurt because I didn’t take the proper steps, but I also don’t want to be the crazy lady who overreacts!"

Thankfully, no one was harmed, but it does leave her with some unanswered questions. Hopefully, someone was just down on their luck and needed allergy medicine and did not have any intent to harm the person who purchased them.