Customs officials seize unapproved medicated eye patches from Hong Kong

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in Pittsburgh seized nearly 4,000 unapproved medicated eye patches destined for Allegheny County in recent months.

Two shipments from Hong Kong, 2,300 eye patches on Jan. 4 and another 1,440 on Feb. 8, were to be shipped to separate Allegheny County addresses. However, CBP officials noticed that none of the packaging contained any English-language directions or ingredients.

“The FDA has certain requirements for packages re-sold in the U.S.,” said CBP spokesman Steve Sapp. “And this completely fails. You can’t read the ingredients, you don’t even know what’s in there.”

FDA officials determined that the eye patches violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act as adulterated or improperly branded medical products. They were subsequently seized by CBP from the Port of Pittsburgh District, which encompasses 12 counties and 200 miles of waterways.

Legitimate medicated eye patches are used to treat conditions like a scratched cornea.

Adulteration of foods and medications has been a major focus of the FDA since its inception. In 2010, the Grocery Manufacturers Association estimated that the annual cost of ‘food fraud’ in the U.S. — things like the addition of sucrose or maltose to honey, or the dilution of olive oil with sunflower or soybean oil — was between $10 and $15 billion.

Import specialists at CBP’s Centers of Excellence and Expertise, the agency’s trade experts, assessed the domestic value of the collective lot of eye patches at more than $10,000.

“(The FDA) came back and said it’s not approved for use in the U.S., so that’s the bottom line for us,” Sapp said.