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Pharmacists’ Syndicate threatens strike on Monday over member arrested for expired medicine

Pharmacists’ Syndicate threatens strike on Monday over member arrested for expired medicine

A shuttered pharmacy in Metn earlier this year. (Credit: Layal Dagher/L'Orient-Le Jour)

BEIRUT — The Pharmacists’ Syndicate threatened Friday to call on pharmacies to close Monday across Lebanon if authorities fail to release a member who was arrested in Jeb Jenin yesterday, our correspondent in the area reported.

Here’s what we know:

    • Joe Salloum, the head of the syndicate, said in a statement that the Bekaa Valley pharmacist was arrested because he had expired medicines in his store. Salloum argued that the medicines had been there because special pharmaceutical “agents” previously tasked with collecting expired drugs had not done so.

    • According to Salloum’s statement, these agents have ceased collecting expired medicines from pharmacies, despite a law stipulating the return of expired drugs.

    • Salloum added that if authorities did not release the Jeb Jenin pharmacist, then the syndicate “reserves the right to resort to all legitimate escalations, including closure on Monday.”

Additional reporting by Sarah Abdallah

BEIRUT — The Pharmacists’ Syndicate threatened Friday to call on pharmacies to close Monday across Lebanon if authorities fail to release a member who was arrested in Jeb Jenin yesterday, our correspondent in the area reported.Here’s what we know:     • Joe Salloum, the head of the syndicate, said in a statement that the Bekaa Valley pharmacist was arrested because he had...