Ants that chew through plastic packaging were one of the more bizarre causes of pharmaceutical product failure that have been investigated by RSSL Pharma's Emergency Response Service in recent months
The ant, with the appropriate name of Monomorium Destructor, is common in tropical regions and increasingly found in temperate areas thanks to the use of central heating in homes and offices.
It has been known to gnaw through electrical wire insulation, cause house fires and prevent cars from starting by shorting their ignition systems.
And on more than one occasion, RSSL Pharma has discovered that it will also bite holes in the plastic packaging used for pharmaceuticals held in a distribution warehouse.
"The phials came to our microscopy laboratory for inspection because they were found to be empty," says Simon Deadman.
"Close inspection by light microscopy showed a tiny, neat hole in the plastic, and in a couple of instances, the ant itself.
"Thankfully these were dead already, either from consuming the product or from crossing to the UK in the hold of the aircraft, but either way, it's not the kind of creature we want to bring alive into the UK".
Other causes of packaging failure, such as inclusions of foreign material, e.g metal, plastics, wood etc or debris from the fabric of the packaging materials themselves, trapped within or between layers of the final packaging are more common.
The chemists at RSSL were on hand to investigate other issues, such as chemical contaminants, taints and off-odours, and residual solvents.
Pharmaceutical and healthcare products account for approximately half of all product incidents investigated by RSSL since the launch of the ERS in 1987.
