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Something's rotten at area drug stores 药店大卖过期药！

Investigators have purchased hundreds of expired products in local drug stores of NY state.

Our probe has uncovered an egregious pattern at two of the largest chains in our state, CVS and Rite Aid. Our investigators have purchased hundreds of expired products, and these are just some examples, over-the-counter medicines, baby formula, milk and eggs.

Drug products have expiration dates for good reason. A drug’s effectiveness can diminish over time as chemicals lose their potency. In fact, the FDA considers it so important that it advises the public to go through their medicine cabinet on a regular basis and to throw out any drugs that are past their expiration date.

We determined that CVS and Rite Aid posed more of a threat to the consumer in terms of the numbers and frequency of expired products that are on the shelves. CVS actually takes an ad saying “Expired products are not just ineffective but can be harmful as well.”

Someway some kind of surprise, because, I mean, when you mention baby food, that’s kind of like, that’s pretty bad. But yet I’m also not really surprised, because I think that in this country we really need to pay more attention to our supply chain, for food and for medicine and various other products. And that’s an area that’s been thoroughly, you know, overlooked.

There’s nothing you could do, I mean, everywhere, not only in CVS, other places. They always have expired things like with the milk and everything.

The stores looked concerned that every customer that came through the door was gonna worried about expiration date on, you know, some like obscure, you know, lotion or whatever that’s on their shelves. Then it’ll be a big deal. But if they’re not asking about it, I really don’t think these people at the stores really care.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. egregious : adj

Egregious means very bad indeed. (FORMAL)

2. potency : n-uncount

The potency of a drug, poison, or other chemical is its strength.

文本参考中文翻译

调查人员在纽约州的当地药店购买到数百种过期药物。

我们的调查批漏了纽约州两家最大的连锁药店的恶行，分别是CVS和Rite Aid。我们的调查人员在这两家药店购买到数百种过期产品，这还只是一些例子，仅仅是非处方药，奶粉，牛奶和鸡蛋。

药物都有保质期，这是有充分理由的。随着时间消逝，药品里面的化学成分逐渐失去作用，药物的效力也逐渐减小。实际上，美国食品和药物管理部门建议公众经常检查药箱，扔掉过期药物。

我们认为，CVS和Rite Aid给消费者造成了巨大威胁，因为他们货架上销售的数目众多而且频繁出现。CVS居然还打出广告“过期药不仅无效而且有害。”

不知什么缘故，总会带给我们一些惊讶。我的意思是，当涉及婴儿食品时，情况非常糟糕。但是实际上我一点都不吃惊，因为我认为，在我们的国家，我们需要更多关注供应链，无论是食品，药物还是其他产品。这是一个被完全忽视的领域。

但是你根本就束手无策，到处都是这样，不只是CVS，其他地方也一样。他们经常非法出售过期的牛奶或者其他产品。

药店似乎非常关心走进药店的每一个顾客是否担心保质期，你知道，像一些不著名的洗涤剂或者货架上的其他产品。这是一个大问题。但是如果人们不问起保质期的问题，我认为药店的人根本不会在意。

单词注解：

egregious 臭名昭著的，恶劣的
potency 药物的效力