Check your medicine cabinet. A major pharmaceutical company has just recalled nearly 600,000 bottles of a blood pressure medication due to the presence of a potentially carcinogenic chemical.
According three different recall notices shared by the Food and Drug AdministrationNew Jersey-based Teva Pharmaceuticals USA has voluntarily recalled several lots of the blood pressure medication prazosin hydrochloride. This is what you should know.
What happened?
According to FDA reports, around 590,000 bottles of prazosin hydrochloride have been recalled due to the “presence of N-nitroso prazosin impurity C above the acceptable intake limit of the Carcinogenic Potency Categorization Approach (CPCA).
Basically, that means that drug testing found that the affected bottles contained a concentration of nitrosamine—a potential carcinogen—that was above acceptable levels established by the FDA.
The FDA has classified this recall as a class IIwhich means “a situation in which use of or exposure to an infringing product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”
What blood pressure medication was taken off the market?
The recall includes vials of prazosin hydrochloride in concentrations of 1 milligram, 2 milligrams, and 5 milligrams. There are three different recall numbers for each of these doses, including:
- D-0104-2026; 181,659 vials of 1 mg doses
- D-0105-2026; 291,512 vials of 2 mg doses
- D-0106-2026; 107,673 for a 5 mg dose
Complete lot numbers for each affected lot of the drug can be found here.
What should I do if I have withdrawn a medication from the market?
In a statement sent to NBC ChicagoTeva said anyone with the affected medication should contact their pharmacy to determine what to do with the remaining quantities, and noted that it has already sent letters to its customers with instructions on how to return the recalled product. The company added that it has not yet received any complaints about the drug.
It’s important to note that in similar cases in the past, the FDA recommended patients continue taking these medications until they had an alternative, because a heart attack is a more immediate risk than cancer.
Teva did not immediately respond to fast companyRequest for comments.
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