Vicks Dayquil Cold & Flu Liquicaps Recalled by Procter & Gamble Due To Failure to Meet Child-Resistant Closure Requirement

Recall Insight

This CPSC action (record #10085) was formally reported on December 18, 2009. It is classified under Moderate severity, with a current status of Active. The Procter & Gamble Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio is listed as the recalling firm. Federal records indicate About 700,000 packages units are affected, a scale large enough to require multi-state distribution tracking.

The documented reason for this recall is: The cold and flu medicine contains acetaminophen and is not in child-resistant packaging and lacks the statement, "This Package for Households Without Young Children," as required by the Poison Prevention Packaging Act.… Distribution information was not included in the agency filing, so consumers should assume broad potential exposure until the firm publishes point-of-sale details. The remedy documented by the agency is: Consumers should keep this product out of the reach of children. Consumers who purchased the product with the expectation that it would be in child-resistant packaging can contact Procter & Gamble fo… — consumers holding this product should act on that instruction rather than relying on general guidance.

To put this record in context, PlainRecalls indexes 83,949 recalls across the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA and USDA FSIS going back to 1995. Within the same product category, the database holds 6 closely related recalls, of which 1 were also issued by CPSC. That clustering is a signal — repeated actions in a narrow category often indicate a systemic quality-control issue, a supplier-wide contamination, or a design defect that has propagated across product lines. This recall is roughly 17 years old; older recalls can remain relevant because many units enter resale, rental, and secondary-market channels where the original warning never reaches the end user. Always cross-check the recall number against the official agency page before relying on any summary.