
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103050419
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MORE SUSPECT SUDAFED FOUND

A fifth package of Sudafed 12-Hour Capsules was turned over to the FBI in Tacoma, Wash., on Monday after a woman noticed it appeared to have been tampered with in the latest incident in a cyanide-tampering case that has killed two people and injured a third.

Jeff Nesbit, a spokesman for the federal Food and Drug Administration, said the woman had taken two of the 10 capsules in the package before hearing about the nationwide recall of the product.

The unidentified woman did not become ill and returned the package to the store where she bought it, Nesbit said. The store called the FBI.

The blister pack of capsules clearly had been tampered with even though it appeared intact, said FBI spokesman Dave Thurston.

"It was slightly different in size and did not have the safety bands that the manufacturer would have placed on the capsules prior to putting them in the blister pack," Thurston said.

The FDA said earlier Monday that it had examined 10,000 cartons of Sudafed 12-Hour Capsules that had been pulled from retail stores in the Tacoma-Olympia area and had found no evidence of tampering.

The agency still was awaiting test results on a suspicious capsule found by another Tacoma woman. That capsule was found in a blister pack with a lot number identical to those containing capsules taken by the victims.

by CNB